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CAGLIOSTRO 



A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts, 



By 



EDWARD DOYLE. 




PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY 

W. B. SMITH & CO., 

NEW YORK: 



iX-^^^-^n^X, 



P5 3^or 



Copyright, 1882. 
By Edward Doyle, New York. 



TO MARY AND ELIZABETH. 

Dear Sisters, now the basket is replete, 

Lead. Only for you, I fear, its fruit, leaves, flowers 

Would be unculled ; hence, 'tis not mine but ours. 

Lead, that we lay it at our Country's feet, 

Rich sandaled, with an angel's speed with sweet. 

Bright hope to man. When darkening, pelting showers 

Thundered upon me, you led me to bowers 

Where the hail fell not, where the sun, hope, beat; 

Without your hands now, — these which oft lead me 

'Long Hudson's slope where zephyrs, as loose-crowned 

With blossoms, tip-toe tread, or billowy bound 

The trees, splashing their nuts down, — I would be 

Most lonesome ; not more so, if cast to ground, 

And hence, to pick more fruit up hungrily. 



PREFATORY NOTES 



Cagliostro, the Familiar of Daniel Douglas Home, the High Priest 
of Modern Spiritism. 

"Cagliostro was, without any exception, the most impudent quack of 
his day. The story of his life is one unbroken record of audacious 
swindling. He was thief, vagabond, and coiner. He professed to have 
the secret of the Elixir Vitas, and the art of transmuting the baser 
metals into gold. As a thaumaturgist and theosopher he gave out that 
he could summon spirits. He was an accomplice in the famous plot of 
the Diamond Necklace, in connection with which Cardinal Rohan cut so 
ridiculous a figure. He was driven in disgrace from every country in 
Europe which he polluted with his presence ; and at length, in 1795, 
closed a life of debauchery and fraud in a Roman prison." — Blackzuood^s 
Magazine, Feb. 1S65. 

Professor Alfred Russel Wallace tells us that Spiritualism teaches that 
death " effects no change in the spirit, morally or intellectually." Com- 
menting on some caustic remarks of Professor Huxley, who would put 
spirits, old women, and curates in the same category, he says : " Many 
scientific men deny the spiritual source of the manifestations, on the 
ground that real, genuine spirits, might reasonably be expected not to 
indulge in the commonplace trivialities which do undoubtedly form the 
staple of ordinary spiritual commimication. But surely Professor 
Huxley, as a naturalist and philosopher, would not admit this to be a 
reasonable expectation. Does he not hold the doctrine that there can be 
no effect, mental or physical, without an adequate cause .? And that 
mental states, faculties, and idiosyncrasies, that are the result of gradual 
development and life-long — or even ancestral — habit, cannot be sud- 
denly changed by any known or imaginable cause .-* 

" The noble teaching of Herbert Spencer, that men are best educated 
by being left to suffer the natural consequences of their actions, is the 

5 



6 PREFATORY NOTES. 

teaching of Spiritualism as regards the transition to another sphere of 
life." Therefore, on the authority of the most philosophical of spiritu- 
alists, it would be credulous in us to suppose that Cagliostro could have 
radically altered his propensities within so brief a period. 

11. 

At the end of act second Dr. Squigginson's clairvoyance is at fault, 
an incident suggested by the following in " Modern Mysteries Explained 
and Exposed," (Boston and London, 1855,) 1^7 ^^v. A. Mahan, first 
president of Cleveland University. " The past fall and winter, nearly 
one year ago, our seer performed a mission in some of the western 
states. When in the city of Cleveland, (we were there at the time,) and 
while delivering a public lecture, he suddenly stopped, and for some 
minutes seemed to be in one of his favorite states of abstraction, or 
spiritual revery. On coming to himself, he remarked that he was 
deeply, painfully impressed with woman's rights, * Will Horace Mann,' 
he exclaimed, ' lecture in this city, this winter ? He will. Will his sub- 
ject be Woman.? It will.' Our seer then requested that portion of his 
audience who should hear Mr. Mann, to compare what he should now 
utter with what Mr. M. should utter on his arrival, and carefully mark 
the correspondence between them. He then delivered a very spirit- 
stirring paragraph, in which the audience was intensely interested. He 
professed to the audience that, during the revery referred to, he had had 
a vision of Mr. M.'s manuscript, and thus obtained the extract delivered. 
When our seer was through, a gentleman in the audience arose, and re- 
marked that he also was impressed to say, that what the speaker had 
just uttered, as obtained through a vision of an unprinted manuscript, 
could be found, word for word, in a certain number of the New York 
Tribune ; and that, if desired, he would produce the paper and read the 
paragraph to the audience. Our seer, of course, was taken all aback by 
such an announcement, and remarking that he did not read the news- 
papers, went on with his lecture. We state facts as they were published 
in the daily papers of that city, while our seer was there ; and to our 
knowledge they have never been contradicted or explained by him or his 
friends. An individual who boarded at the same house with our seer, 
while he was in that city, remarked to us that Mr. Davis was, while 
there, to his personal knowledge, a diligent reader of the papers. Or\ 
his arrival in that city, Mr. Mann remarked to us, that up to that time, he 
had regarded Mr, Davis as a sincere but self-deceived enthusiast; -but 
that now he was compelled to regard him as a deliberate impostor; and 
that for the reason that not a single sentence contained in the extract 



PREFATORY NOTES, 7 

could be found in his manuscript ; that the former was a very condensed 
report of a lecture which he had previously delivered in the city of New 
York." 

III. 

THE PHYSICAL SAVIOR. 

"The mother of 'The Thing,' as Mr. Howitt reverently termed it in 
the columns of the Era^ was Mrs. N. ; John M. Spear constructed the 
machine, and this lady engaged to endow it with perpetual motion. 
Spirits, she declared, had informed her that they 'would make of her a 
second Mary, and she would be a distinguished mother in Israel.' Al- 
though two children had already been born in an ordinary manner, she 
believed herself destined to bring a third into the world, which should 
owe its existence to no earthly father. This 'spirit babe' was to be the 
motive power of John M. Spear's machine. Mrs. N. became pregnant, 
Mr. Spear toiled industriously at the frame which was to contain the 
* power,' and in due course finished his task. The machine was carried 
to High Rock in Lynn, Mass., — a place made celebrated in American 
spiritual annals by more than one ridiculous, and at least one tragical 
event. The language of the ' New Era ' became glowing. It was 
announced that an ' association of Electrizers ' in the spirit-spheres were 
about to reveal to mankind ' the new motive power,' God's last, best 
gift to man. The ' Thing ' once born, would ' revolutionize the world.' 
At length the hour drew nigh. Mrs. N. went down to High Rock. 
John M. Spear, the machine, and various attendants from earth and the 
spirit world, awaited her there. In presence of this devoted band 
the mystical delivery of the wondrous babe took place ; in other words, 
'the power was imparted to the machine.' It moved slightly. John 
M. Spear shouted for joy. The editor of the Era hastened back to his 
office, and indited an article, from which the following are extracts : ' We 
are prepared to announce to the world, ist, that spirits have revealed a 
wholly new motive power, to take the place of all other motive powers. 
2d, that this revelation has been embodied in a model machine, by 
human co-operation with the jDowers above. 3d, that results are, thus 
far, satisfactory to its warmest friends. " The Thing moves." ' 

" We have the birth of a new science, a new philosophy, and a new 
life. The time of deliverance has come at last, and henceforth the 
career of humanity is upward and onward — a mighty, a noble, a God- 
like career. All the revelations of spiritualism heretofore, all the con- 
trol of spirits over mortals, and the instruction and discipline they have 
given us, have only paved the way, as it were, for the advent of a great 



8 PREFA TOR V NOTES, 

practical movement, such as the world little dreams of — though it has 
long deeply yearned for it, and agonized and groaned away its life 
because it did not come sooner. And this new motive power is to lead 
the way in the great speedily-coming Salvation. It is to be the physical 
savior of the race. The history of its inception, its various stages of 
progress, and its completion, will show the world a most beautiful and 
significant analogy to the advent of Jesus as the spiritual Savior of 

the race Hence we much confidently assert that the advent 

of the science of all sciences, the philosophy of all philosophies, and the 
art of all arts, has now fairly commenced. The child is born, not long 
hence he will go alone. Then he will dispute in the temple of science, 
and then — ! ! ' 

" Breath failed the editor, and other fanatics took up the cry. 

" The machine was hailed as the new creation, ' the philosopher's stone,' 
* the act of all acts,' the greatest * revelation of the age.' John M. Spear 
sat for a moment in the seventh heaven, and Mrs. N. already felt the 
halo of a Madonna encircling her brow." 

IV. 

EARTHLY IMMORTALITY. 

" Other insanities of the kind have since occurred. There were in 
America the Kiantone Movement, the Sacred Order of Huronists, the 
Cincinnati Patriarchs, and, worst of all, the Harmonial Society. Miss E* 
Hardinge describes this last, as one of the most extraordinary evidences 
of human folly, credulity, impudent assumption, and blasphemous pre- 
tension that the records of any movement can show. The society did not 
directly originate through spiritualism. On the contrary, it was simply 
a parasitical excrescence foisted upon the movement by interested per- 
sons. As in the case of Mountain Cove, the leading spirit was an ex- 
reverend. A certain T. E. Spencer, formerly pastor of a Methodist flock, 
planned, and, with the aid of his wife, carried out this infamous affair. A 
settlement styled Harmony Springs was formed in Benton County, Arkan- 
sas. All applications for membership Mr, Spencer submitted to his 
controlling angels. They displayed a worldliness of mind hardly to be 
expected from such elevated beings. Rich dupes were eagerly welcomed 
into the harmonial paradise ; but its gates remained inexorably closed to 
the poor. Once admitted, the neophyte found his wealth melt with won- 
ful rapidity. The Spencers, like Dives, clothed themselves in fine linen, 
and fared sumptuously every day. Their followers were enforced to con- 
tent themselves with an extremely meagre vegetarian diet ; the inducement 



PREFA TOR V NOTES. g 

to do so being the hope of earthly immortality ; for the doctrines of the 
Harmonial Society were extremely curious. Many spirits, Mr. Spencer 
taught, perished with the body. Others languished for a short time after 
the separation, and then expired. Only human beings who follovv'ed the 
Spencerian system, could arrive at immortality, which immortality should 
be earthly. And an indispensable condition of the system was that its 
promulgator should have full control of the property of its dupes. In 
a year or two the bubble burst. Dark rumors issued from Harmony 
Springs. It appeared certain that, whether immortal or not, Spencer and 
his followers, male and female, were extremely immoral. Dissension, too, 
wasrife among the community. For a time Mrs. Spencer quieted recu- 
sants by diatribes on the annihilation which awaited them, should they per- 
sist in their mutinous conduct. " Death," she remarked, " is the prying 
into things that are of the world, and acquisitiveness, and keeping any- 
thing to yourselves, and looking into things too much for your knowledge, 
and inquiring into things that the angels only hint at, and questioning 
what the angels say or do, and doubting much, and fixing tip separate dishes 
for yourselves.^'' Despite this sublime philosophy, matters continued to 
grow worse. Several members determined to take legal measures for the 
recovery of their cash. On learning this, the Spencers gathered to- 
gether what was left of the spoil and fled. They were pursued, arrested, 
tried, and sentenced to imprisonment. Of the large sums which had 
been embarked in the ' Harmonial Society,' scarcely a dollar remained." 

V. 

THE SAVIOR, NO DEATH. 

" It is a sad story. Perhaps it would be well to seek to forget it ; but, 
as you truly say, it may serve to warn others. God grant it should. I am 
unable to give you the exact date, but some time in 1853 a strange piece 
of news reached us. We heard that at the house of Mr. X., some little 
girls had become developed as writing mediums, and that Mr. X. him- 
self had great powers over a table, through which messages were given. 
He was a teacher of music, and a good, truly pious man. (Oh! he was 
honest as we all were.) Well, out of curiosity, I went to see these things ; 
and finding that the seances began with prayer, and that all the messages 
given were pure and good, I came home and asked my husband to inves- 
tigate the matter. How many times since then he has said, ' it was you 
who led me into it.' These words were not said complainingly ; for 
what right have any of us to complain ? We all thought we were doing 
right, and even now, sir, I can only say that, if it were a delusion, I still 



10 PREFATORY NOTES. 

believe God will pity us, for our object was to glorify him. My husband 
was a man of great intelligence, and, in proof of it, I need only say, that 
he had been Professor of Mathematics in the college here. At the time 
alluded to, however, he no longer taught. By a number of fortunate 
speculations he had acquired a large fortune, and we were living in ease 
and luxury. (I see you looking around my little room, sir ; but it must 
have been the will of God, and that consoles me.) Mr. X. said his 
table was moved by our Savior, but now, in looking back, I wonder how 
we could be foolish enough to credit such a thing. We were told by the 
table (the words he used was the ' Saviour,' but this constant repetition 
of a holy name is so repulsive, that for the remainder of the narrative I 
substitute the table) that we must take Mr. X., his father and mother, etc., 
to reside in our house and share with them the fortune it had pleased God 
to give us. I said to my husband, let us give them a large sum of ready 
money instead, and ask them to live elsewhere ; for their taste is not 
mine, and I could not be happy with them. My husband answered, the 
life of the one we worship was a life of self-abnegation, and we must in 
all things copy him. Overcome at once these worldly prejudices, and 
your sacrifices will prove your willingness to obey the master. Of course 
I consented; and seven additions were made to our household. Then 
began a life of utter recklessness as regards money. The table ordered 
us to purchase another carriage, and four new horses. We had nine 
servants in the house. Not only that ; but the table ordered us to build 
a steamboat. Very expensive it was. Painters and decorators were set 
to work on the house in which we lived; and however rich and beautiful 
our furniture might be, the table made us replace it with newer and still 
more costly articles. 'All this, sir, was to be done that our mansion 
might be worthy to receive the One whom we foolishly believed came to 
it.' We were told too by the table that it was necessary everything should 
be made as ostentatious as possible, to attract the notice of the outside 
world. We did as we were ordered. We kept open house. The re- 
sults were what might have been expected. People came and made a 
pretence of being convinced. Young men and women visited us, and the 
table ordered them to be married. When they consented, the necessary 
outfits were furnished at our expense. Not only that, sir, but as often as 
these couples had children, the children were sent to us to be brought up, 
and I well remember, that at one time we had eleven infants in the hou.■^e. 
Mr. X., too, married, and his family went on increasing itself. At last, 
no less than thirty of us sat down regularly together. This continued 
for three or four years, until one day we discovered that our means were 
nearly all gone. The table told us to go to Paris, and he would provide 



PREFATORY NOTES, II 

for us there. We went, and my husband was bidden to speculate on the 
Bourse. He did so, and lost. Still we had faith. As there were now 
but a few in the family, we contrived to live on ; heaven only knows how. 
I have been for days together without other food than a crust of dry 
bread and a glass of water. I must not forget to tell you, sir, that whilst 
in Geneva, we had been bidden to administer the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, and that there were sometimes from three to four hun- 
dred communicants at table. A monk from Argovie, left the convent of 
which he was a superior, and renounced the Catholic religion to join us. 
You see, sir, we were not alone in our blindness. Even during our trials 
in Paris, our faith held firm. My husband often said, that the table had 
sent us there, and that he would not return to Geneva without its per- 
mission. At last we asked for that permission, and we were told we 
might return. Ah ! it was then that we fully realized our position. We 
were poor ; and those who had profited by our fortune whilst it lasted, 
were the first to turn their backs on us. I do wrong, sir, to tell you this, 
for it betokens a restless and complaining spirit, and I have no right to 
murmur. I had almost forgotten to relate that, amongst other wild fan- 
cies, the table bid us build a manufactory in France. We did so and the 
undertaking proved a total failure. The place was sold for one thousand 
francs ; not a tenth of what it had cost. You are looking at that large 
engraving, and wonder, no doubt, how it comes to have a place in my 
humble home. Well, sir, during the height of our folly, Mr. X. was 
inspired with artistic ideas, but strange to say, could not give expression 
to them. A professional painter was engaged, therefore, Mr. X. described 
to him his vision. That large engraving is taken from the picture which 
represented X's. idea of the crucifixion. It is at the moment when our 
Lord says ' I thirst' The original painting was sold at auction by our 
creditors, with our house and whatever else remained to us. No, sir, we 
have never seen Mr. X. from that day. He married my niece whilst we 
were all living together, and had four children by her. She was called 
by God, and X. has married again, and, I hear, never alludes to the past. 
Yes, he has been in Geneva, but he did not come to see us. I will tell 
you one little thing which has happened within the last three or four 
months. (The incident not being at all to the credit of X., I refrain from 
giving it.) The character of the narrator is well displayed by the self- 
rebuking manner in which her narrative terminated. 

" Indeed, I am wicked, sir, to have told you such a thing as this ! God 
forgive me I I ought to have been silent about it. Please, please^ forget 
that I told it. I am a sinful old woman, and I bow my head in all 
humility to ask heaven's pardon for speaking such harsh words. Even 



12 PREFATORY NOTES. 

in his wanderings, my husband (the unfortunate man is insane) never 
makes allusions to the past. Oh, I am perfectly convinced, sir, that it 
was not our connection with this affair which deprived him of reason. 
He began to work with his head very young, and mathematics fatigue the 
brain so. It is very, very hard not to have him with me, but he is at 
times beyond my control. Still I wish I could be allowed to have him 
here, and care for him. It is a sad story as you say, but we were all 
striving to obey the dictates of what we thought to be a high and holy 
power. I assure you some messages were very beautiful ; quite superior* 
to what Mr. X. could have given. Well, the day of life will soon termi- 
nate for us, and then we shall read the riddle. Speaking of those mes- 
sages, I fear, sir, even when we believed ourselves most humble, there 
was a strong tinge of vanity in our thoughts, for we all, of course, 
believed ourselves the chosen of the Lord. I remember that, often, on 
seeing a funeral move past me, with its gloomy hearse and trappings of 
sorrow, I have said to myself exultingly, ' how happy it is that we shall 
have no such ordeal to endure ; Ah ! for the table had told us that, as the 
chosen of the Lord, we should none of us see death, but be translated 
bodily to his father's home. Remember, sir, that neither Mr. X. nor any 
other of those concerned, made, or sought to make money out of the 
affair. We were all of us honest in our convictions. We bear our crosses 
cheerfully, therefore, for I cannot but think that, although we may have 
erred, the Lord will repay us, since we erred out of love for him. — 
{Lights and Shades of Spiritualisni, Daniel Douglas Home.) 

VI. 

To many readers, much of the prefatory matter, as I make no direct 
use of it afterward, may appear irrelevant ; I have inserted it to show 
that the drama is no caricature. That I have not reflected merely the 
exceptional, could be proven by quotations from the principal spiritists, 
from Professor Wallace down to Mr. Henry Kiddle. In conclusion, I 
request lenity for oversights. 



a .A.C3-LIO S T RO 



(13.) 



CHARACTERS. 



Judge Guilderbury, an Abraham or Jephthah. 

Col. George Guilderbury, a Logical Materialist. 

Salvation Plover, General Willard's personator. 

Dr. Empedocles Squigginso'n, a Medium and Builder of the New 
Motor, the Physical Savior of the race. 

Alfred Templeton, a Clergyman. 

Cagliostro, the Inspirer of the New Motor and the Second Com- 
ing, and the Spirit of John Keats. 

Patsy, an Unprogresssed Spirit, and the Bishop. 

Ralph Raymond, a Cagliostro in flesh. 

Smith Van Doozer, a Philosopher. 

Mrs. Willard, the General's wife, who is offered up by the Judge, 
her father. 

Matilda Saunderson, Mrs. Willard's Maid and Sister, and the 
Spirit of Emma. 

Mrs. Stanhope Squigginson, a Second Adventist. 

LiLLA Lamb, The Mother of the New Messiah. 

Mrs. Lamb, Lilla's Mother, and a Disturbing Influence. 

FouRACRES, Andrew and Pompey, Servants. 

SCENES — Monument Park and Denver City, 



(14) 



CAGLIOSTRO. 



ACT I. 

SCENE — Mominient Park, the white peaks in the distance. In front of a 
colonnade the ground has been torn by the horses^ hoofs, and on the left, near 
a steep descent, lies General Willard's body. The Colonel desce7ids from the 
right., feels the GeneraVs ptdse and breast, applies a pocket mirror to his 
month, pillozvs the head upon a stone, and with a handkerchief, covers the , 
features. 

CoL (^Stepping aside. ^ When you would shout, "for 
heaven's sake drop the pen, 
Take mental rest, air, exercise," as if 
I were a horse to be turned out to die : 
You saw me dead before you, ay, seemed anxious 
To make the funeral march a double quick. 

Judge. (^Descending) Dead I How be otherwise ? 

Col. Is silenced. 

Judge. What ? 

Col. Is superseded ; last campaign is over. 

Judge. It cannot be, no, no ! Can God have blasted 
His own right hand with which he drew our country 
Up, as a drowning woman, from the maelstrom 
Of civil war .? No, no ! nor could have lifted 
Her miles, bright leagues, above dark whirls of carnage 
To let her drop, sink deeper than before. 

CoL A God } pshaw! see ! {Uncovei^s the features). 

Judge. (^Bending over, then sJmdderijig back). Lord I 
Willard ! warm, brains out ! 

Mouth purple, as noon-anguished morning glories 
Over poor Emma's tombstone, — now his own ! 

Col. {After coveriiig features). Unable to restrain his 
horse from plunging 
Into the chasm, he must have sprung off here. 



1 6 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Judge. Lord ! what will Jane do ? My dear child ! I 
hear 
Her falling, groaning, see her frothing, bleeding 
As were her mouth a battle-axe's gash. 
She must not die ! — would let her die ? 
Col. No fear. 

Judge. No fear ! Forget her screeching, mad, hair- 
rending 
When Emma fell in, was the food of mud-fish } 
At each heart-bursting booming of the cannon ? 
When breathless divers rose with hopeless hands 
To catch a breath, and then went down again } 
And when poor Emma, after the lightning smote 
The lake and crusted it with lifeless fishes, 
Arose, and was so eaten who could suffer 
Her mother even a glimpse 1 
Col. I know all this. 

Judge. Forget it not, nor that she was too blinded 
With tears, sir, to behold her cloud, affliction, 
Was shining with the coming Prince of Peace, 
Or see him smiling in the wave with hand 
Of light out to the groper in the dark, — 
That, crazed, she cried out, — " Dive no more O sun ! 
Since thou must ever rise with hopeless hands ; " 
And, groaning, fell. Did we not marvel at 
Her rising, as the widow at her son's t 
Can Jane see this and live 1 — are you not listening ? 

Col. I know not what you mean by all this firing, 
Unless to empty barrels of old charges. 
Judge. Remove poor Willard in the shade. 
Col What.? 

Jtidge. {Having misheard). Why ? 

The sunshine on his features is too dazzling 
With ghastliness. 
Col. Sunshine ! 

Judge. Oh, any how 

Move him from sight! behind there. 
Col. Not worth while. 



CAGLIOSTRO, 



17 



Judge, Had we not better consult ? 

{Both stare, each trying to read the other,) 
Col. About what ? 

Judge. What 

We ought to do. 

Col. Dispatch the wretch. 
Judge. For what } 

Col. Did he not lead us here designedly } 
Jtidge, I said so ere I knew what I was saying, 
Supported you impulsively — officially — 
For firing like a murderer — lunatic — 
Intending at first chance to reprimand you, 
As Heli may have often done, poor fool ! 
No, by my hope in Christ no jot of guilt 
Do I discern in him. 

Col. Weak-sightedness 

A witness } Where, pray } With this field-glass saw 
I not the wretch pull back, as desperate oarsman 
From vortex, long before poor Willard galloped 
Upon the ledge } 
Judge. What! 

Col. Had I not, moreover, 

Before that spied him bearing down on Willard } 
Judge. Would Willard not have turned on him } 
Col. He didn't. 

Judge. Coward to not have sped to his assistance ! 
Col. I thought it was a feint. 
Judge. It was a feint, 

For Willard would have come back if in danger, 
Not waded into the marsh still deeper. 

Col Deeper 

He did go, hence is swallowed. 
Judge. Oh ! yet wait — 

Col. Nay, saw him on his horse a standing serpent 
In exultation as the General fell, 
Then take to grassy groveling to slip off. 
Judge. Judge him 1 will not ; keep him under arrest. 
{Colonel starts.') Where are you going ? 



i8 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Col. Shall be back soon. 

Judge. Counting 

On my endorsement? Bear in mind, sir, never 
Again shall I attach to a deed of rashness 
My signature, — save to protest. 

Col. ^ Hell! Will 

People not think the general foully dealt v^ith t 
And this belief, like every other darkening 
The earth, nay, all creation, must have victims. 
You might as well pluck from a tiger's claws 
A lambkin, as a thing belief is eating. 

Judge. Lord ! what would you do t 

Col. Let Belief eat on, 

Nay, give her plenty of what she finds so toothsome. 
Mobs in black masks, each howling like a demon 
Against the Union, riddled us like woods 
Between two batteries. 

Judge. Riddled ? Oh, how prove ? 
CoL I do not mind some flesh wounds. 

Judge. But I do. 

No blood have I to spare, — and you ? 

Col. Then riddle 

Your hat, graze shoulder. Willard, dying, whispered 
Within your ear — 

Judge, When } when } did not — 

Col. Cannot 

You say so ? 

Judge. Oh ! — 

Col. That he had injured me 

Through dread of being dubbed a nepotist, — 

Judge. I, too, have suffered at his hands severely, — 

CoL That, by suggestions, — worthy Jomini, 
Whom Bonaparte feared, — I had opened the door 
To the sky-ascending stairs, up which he led 
Our country, like an invalid, or bride, — 

Judge. But let it pass. The bush that we plant over 
The dead should be well pruned, not have a thorn 
Upon it to distress our fingers, wishes, — 



CAGLIOSTRO. 19 

Col. (^Showing impatience). Though I am still a 
beggar under the steps, 
Achingly perishing of cold neglect. — 

Jitdge. But odoriferous flowers that may sustain 
Us from the faint and fall — misanthropy. — 
What now of that society ? * Could it 
Have throned him though ? 

Col. If it be large of limb, 
I will make it our wrestler — Hiawatha, — 
Against democracy, weak, brainless blusterer! 
But tumble it, if small, and rise by standing 
Upon its body. By destroying some one, 
The public will declare us energetic. (^Sia-.ts.) 
Judge. Wait, such were well, if something better 
still, — {catching Colonel) 
Are you stark mad t At such a sight will not 
Poor Jane and country drop in epilepsy } 

Col. (^Freeing himself.) Damn it 1 no time to walk 
with an idea 
Backward and forward, — cripples should be shot, — 
Must spring on and spur off. 
Judge. What ! break our necks 1 
Col. Well! 

Judge. Neither must behold such ghastliness. 
(^Col Starts.) Wait ! wait ! Am I a wolf that you 
should run } 

Would you not from your sister's mouth pluck 
poison ? 
Tell her I dare not, dare not ; and dare you } 
Col. How help it ? 

* " I design, in the following pages, to give some account of an extraor- 
dinary movement, set on foot of late by a few restless people, to establish 
imperialism in the United States. My intention is to show that there 
really exists a secret organization for this purpose, which has enrolled a 
considerable body of members; that the audacious print, called " T/ie 
Imperialist,'' which appeared regularly every week during April, May, 
June, and July of the present year, was the accredited organ of the soci- 
ety ; and that, though the paper has run its course, the society still con- 
tinues." — Z., Galaxy for November f i86g. 



20 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Jtidge. Know of only one thing. 

Col. Well ? 

Judge. I hate it, shrink from it, 
Col. Then let it drop. 

Judge. Yet it will glove our numerous-fingered case 
From numbing frost. 

CoL Well? 

Judge. Did you note their close 

Resemblance ? 
CoL Whose? 

Judge. Does he not look like Willard ? 
Col. What if he does ? 

Judge. Oh ! do you think that he 

Could — could — 
CoL Could what ? 
Judge. Act Willard ? 

Col. What ? ha ! ha ! {Pushes him) 

Judge. How dare you push me "i 
CoL Off to the mad-house ! 
Judge. What ? 

Col. There echo your heart and head out howling. 
Judge. If 

I err — 

CoL If? ha! ha! ha! 

Judge. Believe me, 'tis 

From over sympathy, not lack of it. 
Could I see Jennie bleeding as from lungs ? 
CoL Ha! 

Judge. Could I see our country stricken down, 
Nay, carried off by traitors, savages, 
For mutilation ? 

Col. Bah ! sheer gush ! 

Judge. Did not 

Our party rescue her from degradation 
Before ? 
Col. Yes. 

Judge. Must he let her drop now ? 
CoL No, 



CAGLIOSTRO. 21 

Judge, Why not ? 

Col. Why not ? We want to reap the pumpkins. 

Judge. Tut, tut, sir ! If he let her drop, would she 
Not split her head wide open, so that death 
Would crawl in like an hibernating bear ? 

Col. That is the way we put it when we stump. 

Judge. Our country now depends for her existence 
Upon one hair. 

Col. One hair ! 

Judge. Aye, Willard's name. 

Col. You mean our party. 

Judge. Don't. Am I a dolt } 

Know well what I am saying — mean our country. 
Cut that one hair, she drops. 

Col. If such a ghost, 

She ought to drop. Why make a Frankenstein 
Of her .? I hate such bosh. More than a hair 
Name needed, more than a blank, unloaded form. 

Judge. The spirit is needed ; — can't we be the spirit 
As perfectly as Plover is the face } 

Col. (^Slowly.') That might go off. 
Judge. Might } will. 

Col. They did look twins ; 

Yet Jennie does sharp shooting with her eyes. 

Judge. I think he could be chiseled to perfection, 
Such things' have been. 

Col. We must do something. 
Judge. Hurry, 

He comes, — decide. 

Col. {After a pause. ^ I honor the fourth command- 
ment. 
March on, I follow. 
Judge. May the Lord — 

Col. Here, here ! 

Put up no heavenly ensign, lest the devil 
Take us for foes, turn grape and shell on us. 
(^Fouracrcs and Plover enter ^ 

Fouracres. He brags of a great conspiracy. 



22 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Judge. What, what, sir ? 

Fouracres. " In Denver alone," he says, " at present 
hundreds 
Are at half-cock awaiting signals." 

_P lover. Will 

You guarantee my life if I drag up 
Those getting away now ? 

CoL Drag each wretch up. 

Plover. Will 

You take the names down ? 

CoL Yes. 

Plover. The rebel generals — but 

They will themselves be here soon, and can answer. 

Judge. We better defer all cross-examination 
Until on safer ground. 

Plover. Just what I want, — 

A trial, a public bath ; just let me dive in, 
Wash off cold, black suspicion from my skin. 

Judge. Are yqu not guilty } 

Plover. No. 

Col. Damn me if you 

Get off so easily ! confessed enough ! 

Plovei. That I might get a trial. 

Judge. Were those credentials 

Authentic } 

Plover, Solid. Dead ? 

CoL A blasted cap. — 

Swear never to oppose our plan. 

Judge. Swear, swear. 

Plover. I swear to never oppose, but push it onward, — 

Judge. Good ! 

Plover. Yere, wheelbarrow it from east to west 
If needed, though I bend my shoulders over 
Till, like a rainbow, they no more can straighten. 

Judge, Oh ! nothing on this earth is nobler, grander, 
Than honest rainbow shoulders after the storm. 

CoL Here, here. 

Plover. Can I do more ? 



CAGLIOSTRO. 23 

Col Enough. {To Judge?) Untie him. 
{To Fouracres,) Go to the tent, have it brought here. 

{Exit Fouj^acres.'] 

Judge. {Unshackling Plover.) Ought bury 
Him now 1 

Plover. Hey ? 

CoL Yes. 

Plover, Be quick then, gents, for travelers 
Aire not rare fish in this Gulf-stream of mountains, — 
May any moment catch and gnaw the body. 

Judge. Inter him quickly, I feel faint. — Look after 
Effects. 

Col. {To Judge) You get the sword. He flung it off, 
Seeing it added to his jeopardy. 
He must have come down like a cataract 
From crag to crag. There, see it glimmering. 

Judge. Where .'' 

Col. There, — hurry a bit ; I hate mere caterpillaring. 
{The Judge checking his impulse to retort ^ goes for the 

sword) 
Don't tell the old man where we put the body. 

Plover. If he should ask me, — 

Col. Misdirect him. — Swear 

To never breathe of what you hear or see. 

Fouracres. {Entering with Poinpey and Andrew carry- 
ing the tent, 
I swear. 

Poinpey aud Andrew. I swar. 

Col. Erect the tent there. {To Plover?) Lift. 
(jCol and Plover carry tJie body out through the groove.) 

Pompey. {A dandy y and after a patise.) What is de 
color of dis snake, dis trouble ? 

Andrew. Hush. 

Poinpey. Garter ? rattle } 

Andrew. Swear we not to be 

Deaf mutes } 

Pompey. We can with muf one-sided yacht-like 
Sail unobsarved, much better than by signs 
Like de first fiddler. W^hat has happened ? 



24 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Four acres. Hush. 

Judge. {After a patise, entering^ Through yet ? 

Fouracres. Yes, Judge. 

Plover. (^Entering.) The Colonel wants you nigs. 

\Exeunt the three ^ 

Judge. I now inaugurate you with his sword. 

Plover. I had one once, but pawned it. 

Judge. You have then 

Had some experience .'* 

Plover. I should think I had ; 
Was many a time a target company's captain. 
{Putting sword down?) Lie down thar, snooze. If I 

must nurse you, rear you. 
You will not keep so rosy-cheeked, I reckon, 
But wane a skeleton. 

Judge. Oh ! rosy-cheeked 
With running up the hill of victory 
With Fatherland and Freedom by the hand, 
Parents whose faces may well beam with pride. 

Col. {Entering?) Who else was thought of for the 
emperorship } 

Plover. The biggest-handed. 

Col Named ? 

Plover. No. 

Judge. Who } 

Plover. Whoever 

Can hold the reins of all the states at once 
Without permitting a horse to balk or stop, 
Or over-jump his traces, and can drive 
Where snow is thick, so as to give the people 
A jolly time, a picnic, not a dump. 
Could you, sir? 

Col Easily. 

Judge. {Muttering?) Like Phaeton. 

Plover. When I broached it, the General, with a look 
Which wound around me like a whip, spurred off. 
Who.? 

Judge. You yourself may have to drive. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 25 

Col How? 

Plover. Me ? 

I could not drive a district, drive a sulky, 
Without a rough-and-tumble, smash-up. 

Judge. That 

Is, — as a child in some big person's lap. 

Plover. I see, I drive when your bands get too cold, 
Or when the coast is clear, has no more turns. 
Judge. Exactly. 
Col. Drop this project. 
JudgQ. Why, sir .-* 
Plover. Cache it.-* 

Col. Yes ; do not dig it up till you get orders. 
Plover. All right, boss. 
Col. You can take your rig right off. 
Plover. (^Scratching Ids ear.) Before I get another to 

put on .-* 
Col. No, they lag long ; 
Judge. Sworn in ? 
Col. Yes. 

Jtidge. Whither sent } 
Col. To dig a rifle pit out — mean a grave. 
Judge. Why is it that he has to change his clothes ? 
Col. Damn it, am I before court martial, or 
Committee on the conduct of the war } 
Judge. You need not snap so. Do you think inter- 
ment 
Quite safe .'' Cremation would be safer. 

Col. Need 

A good retrenchment to ward off disaster 
If we are worsted, cannot further advance. 
Judge. If it were taken by the enemy, — 
Col. Ere that we burn it, as the Russians, Moscow. 
Judge. When, when incinerate it } 
Col. Not before 

The marriage. 
Judge. Oh ! the marriage ! how } how } 
Col. How 

Do I know 1 you proposed it ; should have known 
The enemy's strength before attacking him. 



26 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Judge. I did not dare to think of that before. 
I pushed it off with the thought that we were leaving 
Poor Willard hke a dog upon the ground. 

Col. Would he not be locked up in a room, if home ? 

Judge. Would be laid out in state. Neglect, atrocious ! 

Col. During the battle can we kneel and whimper 
Over a fallen brother } Onward ! onward ! 
Must trample the dearest down, — shell even the churches 
If in the way. 

Judge. Hey ! 

Col. Onward ! fire ! Is the rite 
Essential t 

Judge. Are we brutes ? 

Col. Unluckily, no.* 

How get a minister.!* or Jane's consent.? 

Judge. Until the marriage not another step. 

Col. I differ in opinion. 

Judge. Oh ! would crash 

Poor Jennie's eyes and head in with this horror 
Ten thousand times, rather than she should live 
Unholily like — Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! 

Plover. {To Col.) Does spanking 

Cross youngsters make them quiet ? never. Hope 
Should take his feelings in her arms, walk up 
And down the floor, sing hushabye. 

Col. What hope ? 

See none. 

Plover. Believe in spirits } 

Col. Trash ! 

Plover. Was thinking 

Of Squigginson. 

Col. The juggler?. 

Plover. Medium, — Sampson — > 

Long white-haired — down back — drest all yaller? 

Col. Why.? 

Plover. Bet he could get us spirits to pump out 

* Edward von Hartmann. 



CAGLIOSTRO. . 2 J 

This vessel, which is now so full of water 
We splash at every step. 

Judge. But could he, though ? 

Plover. Well, if he can't, no man now kicking can, 
Lincoln and cabinet once consulted him. 

Judge. True! I was present. 
Col. Trash ! 

Judge. What's trash, sir t 

Col. Spirits. [Exit.] 

Plover. I laughed at them, jeered, sneered, until my 
nose 
Was plucked by one — Oh ! twisted with a corkscrew — 
Or with a dentist's or a blacksmith's pinchers. {Feels his 

nose) 
I fancy it a ram's horn ever since. 

Judge. Could there have been no trick } 

Plover. A trick of course. 

But then it was a ghost who played it. 

Col. {Re-entering.) Strip, — 

Fouracres comes with regimentals. 

Plover. { To Fouracres, entering in a heat) What's 
The matter } 

Judge. Chased } 

Fouracres. I ran because the Colonel 

Said I should hurry up, and clouds were gathering. 

Judge. Oh ! 

Plover. Have I not seen you at Squigginson's } 

Fouracres. Have been at circles. 

Plover. Have seen spirits .'* 

Fouracres. Yes, sir. 

Plover. Did any fish up sea-sunk secrets t 

Judge. Hey } 

Col. That you had eaten garlic for your dinner } 

Fouracres. Said I was hankering after Miss Matilda, 
That I had married a thief disguised as woman 
Which made me swear to never risk another, 
For that pug nose had been my family's wet nurse.* 

* Dr. Draper. Milk. 



28 CAGLIOSTSO. 

That my dear sister Kate had, when nineteen, 
Though 'till then white as milk, become a negress, 
The blackest, woolliest, — * 
Judge, True ? 

Fouracres, True as I live, — 
And that she took to it quite handsomely, 
For, in three weeks, she married a colored preacher. 

Col. Had she known him before ? 

Fouracres. From creeping-hood. 

Col. Ha ! clearly a case of mind controlling matter. 
They loved each other ardently, — 

Fouracres. No, Colonel. 

Col. Had seen Othello, read it to each other. 

Fouracres. No, Colonel ; no ! no ! 

Judge. {To Fouracres.) To the medium, sir. 

Col. The preacher would have whitened — which so 
few do — 
If he had been the stronger in his mind. 

Judge. Fly to the medium, fetch him quickly hither. 
In all my life I never met a witness 
So tantalizing with irrelevancy. 

CoL Ere I consent, sir, promise to support 
My plan when yours has failed. 
Judge. Wait till it does fail. [Exit Fotcracres.l 

Col. This medium may be able to entrance 
Dear Jennie, but will he not play the devil 
With her poor mind .? {To Fouracres.) Put lightning to 

your heels. 
{To Plover?) Change clothing quickly. 

Plover. Now, I don't deny 
That we may have to hang in dark suspense 
In seances sometime, like hams and shoulders 
Within a smoke house. 

Col Damn it. ( To Fouracres?) Hey ! hey ! hey ! 
{To Plover.) Should said so first, 
Jttdge. ( To Fotcracres.) Go on ! 

* Complexion. A;ppletotC s Encyclopedia, 



CAGLIOSTRO. 29 

Plover, But will be cured. 

Andrew. {Re-entermg.) De garments. 

Col. Follow! under no pretense 

Whatever must he slip your grip of sight. 
Remember promises. 

\Exit nervously with Andrew^ 

Plover. Pull ofif that boot, Judge. 

{The Judge, after Jiesitating a few seconds, complies) 
And must I change my good old honest name } 
It is a porous plaster covering me 
From head to foot, and pulling ofif hurts, hurts. 
Gosh ! 'tis like leaving home with mother standing 
At door, or gate, white-aproning her red eyes, 
And sister at the fence, with yellow head 
Down, like the willow over the old man's grave. 

Judge. Hurry ! — what standing for } 

Plover. Some tears of memory 

Just gathered in my eyes, but now are shed. 
I hate to shake this rig. 

Col. (^Entering). You must have hated 

To shake it for some months. 

Plover. Gosh! just what Sal 

Was in the habit of ejaculating ; 
For dust, least straw, will set a woman cracked, 
As a red shirt will set a bullock crazy. 

Col. Is she still living } 

Plover. Yere, and ruther tough ; 

Last week's collision barely skinned her nose. 

Judge. And are you married ? 

Plover. Many a wretched year. 

Judge. Mountains on mountains rise, — how cross 
them all .'* 

Col. One at a time. 

Plover. What aire you going to do 

With these old things t 

Col. Put them upon the body 

That clues may point to your demise, not his, 
Should any harass us on flank, or rear. 



30 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Judge. Clues ! 

CoL {To Plover^ Get in there. {Plover enters 
tent,') 

Judge. Where is the grave ? 

Col. No matter 

To you. 

Judge. But 'tis. 

Col. 'Tis not. 

Judge. Must read the service. 

Col. If he be now in Heaven, can you improve him ? 
No other place to go to. 

Judge. Isn't there though } 

'Twere well for you there were not. 

Col. You, fire-proof? 

Combustible as I am. 

Judge. Oh ! more so, 

A thousand times more so ! more so indeed ! 
I am neck deep, but not yet overhead ; 
One gasp more, not too late yet to be saved. 

CoL Hell! {Starts off.) 

Judge. ( Wringing his hands and turning aside?) 
Oh ! that gnashing famine after God, 
That famine fever for one drop of peace. 

{Glancing at Colonel and following}^ 
George ! George ! Come back ! I say, come back I come 
back I 



ACT n. 

(Plover in regimentals imder the awning^ 

Judge. {Approaching}) I called you, why did you 
not come and stop him ? 

Plover. I had no shooter, and the Colonel's quick, — 
And, Judge, I took the pledge from interfering 
In family squabbles just three years last Fourth, 
When, rushing to the rescue of a woman 



CAGLIOSTRO. 3 1 

Screaming '*help ! murder ! " she was first to turn 
Upon me with a poker, crying, " Fritz, 
Now make yourselfs vonce handy mit stove-covers 
Against dis tief, or mit your razor vitch 
You jus vos daking out to cut mine corns." 
Bloods thicker than water, — it will heal its cut 
Quicker than cobwebs, or black piaster, Judge. 
{Judge scozvls.^ Cramps? got 'em bad. Judge? 

Judge. No, no. 

Plover. Thought you had. 

{Rubbing his kuces.) A storm comes, I can feel it in my 
bones. 

Judge. Fouracres yet in sight? my eyes are dusk- 
ing. 

Plover. Not yet. 

Judge. Suppose the doctor be from home, — 

Plover. What good is such supposing ? I have heard 
The best preventive of a bloody nose 
Is just to keep it clean of ugly places. 
Why stick our noses into mere supposing, 
Then have them bleeding, make success, on coming 
Up, puffing, drop his cold keys down our back 
Instead of opening the doors at once. 

Col. {Entering.) Fouracres not yet back ? 

Plover. Not yet. 

Jtidge. The grave 

Is all right I suppose, — 

Col. Suppose it is. 

Judge. No danger — not the slightest — of discov- 
ery ? 

Col. No more than of your ever hushing up. 
Ask me at once, sir, if I am stark mad. 

Judge. I need not ask about a thing I see. 
Col. We start right off without that charlatan. 
Oh, idiot that I was to have consented 
One second ! There is something, not ourselves, 
1 hat makes for evil, as for righteousness. 

Judge. ( Warmly ) We Christians call that Satan. 



32 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Col We ! 

Judge. Oh ! 

Col. {To Plover^ Sicken. 

Plover. Sicken ? 

Col. Assume a disease that alters features, 
As Walter Raleigh did to save his life. 

Plover. He did, hey ? How wind up ? 

Col. How ignorant ! 

Judge. How manage the marriage ? 

Col. During his convalescence 

We can treat that, as well as how to lessen 
Ourselves of clumsy luggage. Have we not 
His project to dispose of, and his spouse ? 

Plover. Gosh ! I forgot poor Sal — as usual. 

Judge. Was 

She ever unfaithful ? 

Plover. No. 

Judge. Too bad ! bad case I 

I would advise desertion for two years. 

Plover. Only two years ? 

Col. Damn it, man, are you raving? 

Plover. Expected next his hand out for the fee. 

Judge. Were she unfaithful, we could feel less culpable. 
(Pacmg.) Oh ! swarms of thoughts are beetling in my 

face, 
They bite and blind so, that I feel half mad. 
The marriage when arranged, how end } 

Plover. With 

A twenty pounder through the future's broad side, 
Smoke-stack, or rigging. 

Judge. {In anguish.) Oh ! 

Plover. All clouds above us 

Will snow in our favor fast and thick the moment 
The medium comes. A reindeer 1 shall be 
With bells to the nuptial sled. Gosh ! I can see 
Myself a flying and the country taking 
A hitch behind. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 33 

JiLdge, The snow may turn to rain, 

Make swamping slush. Why was I ever born ? 
CoL I give it up, if not to be a plague. 

Judge. Back ! 
Col. Never. 

Judge, Where is Andrew ? where Fouracres ? 
They took our finest horses, — 

CoL As I ordered 

Them. 

Judge, Ha! the more the idiot, fool I 

May be they start the human cry against us. 

Plover. This secret is indeed too small a boat 
For more than three to sit in. 

Col. We must tumble 

The others over, else go down to bottom. 

Judge, Murder? murd — 

Col. Damn you, hush. 

Judge. Damn ! damn ! Oh ! Oh ! 

Plover. Can we keep up a steady pull from sight, 
If we are wedged in — have not elbow room — 
And have to carry three huge lifeless bulks ? 
No one but pullers can remain aboard, 
Except the cockswain. {To Judge?) You must be the 

cockswain, 
Though must not blur your eyes with tears, then fancy 
Thick fog ahead. 

Judge. Were it not better, sir, 

To catch those runaways than, unpetitioned,. 
To give instructions 1 

Plover. Judge, you hit bull's eye. 

Judge. Fouracres seemed in hissing howling woods, 
Striving to keep in shriek till out of them. 

Col. Had he so seemed, you would have tightened 
grip. 

Plover, What can he do } can't three outswear a 

moke .-* 
Col, No negro. {Goes to the side ) 

Judge, {Following him,^ Are they coming ? 



34 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Plover, I'll be hanged 

If he ain't turning like his milky sister 
Love lightninged then. He has sorae " yock ! yock ! 

yah I " 
With arms akimbo on the brain. When thousands 
Of lovers lose themselves in smallest mouths, 
As skylarks in the rosy mouth of morn, — 
Which may be why to kiss is called skylarking, — 
No wonder he is lost in one so roomy. 
Judge. Land I land ! The doctor, too } 

Col. No, nor Fouracres. 

Judge. Lord ! 

Col. You have fired and missed, it is my turn. 
Judge. Oh ! Lord ! wait, — not my signature — no, no. 

Col. When the barometer drops down so fast; 
And ship is listing so that none can stand, 
Must we not make like lightning to the shore } 

Plover. {To Judge.') May be the land the Colonel 
spies is nearer ; 
The blue upon its hills may be a jay 
Let loose from the ark of spring. 

Col. {To Andrew rushing in) Where is Fouracres? 
Judge, What can have happened } where is he ? 
w^here ? where ? 
Oh ! where } 

Andrew. De table swallowed him. 
Judge. What ! 

Col. Idiot, 

Did I not tell you under no pretence 
To let him slip your grip of sight .'' 

Andrew. Yes, Colonel, 

But I was hauled up by de heels, hke bulls 
In slaughter-houses, pelted out de winder. 

Col. A put up job ! By the Eternal, I 
Will scatter some one's brains like melon seed. 
Fouracres and that juggler are in league. 

Judge. Then jump upon them ere they creep away 
Swiftly as swallows. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 35 

Plover. Have seen marvels beating 
All hollow those the moke has just related. 
These are the first plucks that the doctor gives 
His goose-like banjo, ere he plays his best. 

Judge. What did the doctor say ? 

Andreiv. He was not home, sar. 

Judge. Oh ! knew that once we cut adrift from God, 
He would not send an angel to our rescue, 
But let us dash a-down the dark canon. 

CqL {To Andrew^ Where is Fouracres's horse ? 

Andrew. Sar ? at de doctor's. 

CoU Go after that rascal ; show not up without him. 

Judge. Come back of course, if you can't find him. 
Col. Hush I 

Judge. Because one goes, lose all } 

Col. ( Writing.^ This to your lady. 

Judge, I look up and I see no sky, no hope, 
But sand-storms bursting down and walls collapsing. 

Plover. You need not fret, the doctor will be here. 

(^Lightning twice ^ 

Judge. Oh ! 

Plover. Bright- winged swallows speeding, like por- 
poises. 
Ahead of the storm, above white cranking ganders, 
Drawing green chains of goslings from the pond. 
Gosh ! I can see them Indian file, hear mother. 
With switch behind her, shouting, " Don't dare roll 
Down them wet trowsers, but just fall in line." {Rubs 
his legs.) 

Judge. As we to death. Oh ! had you hindered this, 

\_Exit Andrew with fiote.] 
Which by one word, one beck, you still can do, — 
As, when a child, I would have hindered you 
From hanging, drowning, — but you drive me on. 
Col. Mere arguing now is vain, our ship is burning. 

Judge. But we can quench the blaze. 
Col. Too late. (^Thunder.') 

Judge. No, no! 



36 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Col. Ah ! in my soul, sir, you have generated 
A huge ambition, and he now is howling 
For something to eat and wear. Far too athletic 
Is he — tall, strong — for me to throw, or choke, 
Were I inclined to a deed so parricidal — {Thunder^ 
" Would you not from your sister's mouth pluck poi- 
son ! " \CoL coitghs and goes out for air.~\ 

Judge. Ah me ! Oh, misery, misery ! I am damned. 
(^.Clutching Plover^ You join us willingly ? 

Plover. Most willingly. 

Judge. You will not at your death cry out to Heaven 
To blast to hell this wretch, white sepulchre, — 
This head that has Saint Elmo's light of age 
Upon it, ship see-sawing on the verge 
Between two gulches of the sea, or earthquakes, 
A horrible black past, still blacker future } 

Col. {J^eturning.~) Hell ! 

Judge. Endless gnashing famine after God ! — (To 
Plover?) This white hair that should be the dawning 

rays 
Of a felicitous eternity, — 
Humanity's Pike's Peak at Sun-rise, — 

Plover. ( Trying to release himself gently^ while the 
Colonel plucks the Judge?) No ! — 

Judge. Not glare of death, the comet that strikes earth 
Each day, nay, hour, and shakes vast millions off. 

Col. Let go. 

Judge. Swear ! swear ! - 

Plover. I swear. 

Judge. (^Releasing Plover.^ I did my best. 
To catch up and protest. {Paces j^apidly then stops?) I 

ran as far 
As I was able, shouting, " Stop ! come back ! " — 

Plover. {To Col.) The rumbling ere the mental quake, 
I reckon. 

Judge. Can more have been expected } Stupid fool I 
I should have known swift horses always stand 
In readiness for Evil to spring on, — 



CAGLIOSTRO. 37 

Plover. {To Col.) Ought we not keep at door, valise 

in hand? 
Judge. That in a thrice he is beyond our grasp 
To pierce us flying, — diabolic Parthian ! 

((9/2 the rocks to the right rises a blue cloitd?) 
Col. Now ready for the road ? 
Judge. Lord ! in this storm ? 
CoL The clouds are but a black horse cavalry 
And will be off on making a dash or two. 
Judge. Ah ! but just such — 
Col. I know, I know. 

JiLdge. What do 

You know } but little, and that nonsense. Had 
You taken my advice, sir, which you never 
Did — (pauses.^ 

Col. Say it out I that I was carri ed ofif 
By such a dash, then left among the dead, — 
No more than able to crawl across a few days, — 
Red, ghastly, mangled bodies pestering earth. 
Shake me no more up, whispering, ** look ! look ! look ! " 
Afraid that I will nap from agony 
One minute } What the devil am I doing 
But following your advice most docily } 

Judge. Ha ! 

No rational child will burn his fingers twice 
At the same fire. 

Col. {Donning a rubber coat andhat.) Fetch him at 
once to the house. 
The darky will have swept the ice from path, 
And I will call on Squigginson. Fouracres 
Will meet us with the carriage on the road. 
Judge. I hope so. 
CoL Damfz your hope so ! 

Plover. Scissors, Colonel .^ 

Willard looked like my double candle lighted 
Upon the wall,,or ruther I looked his. {Lightning) 
Judge. (^P idling George back.) No scissors during the 
lightning ! no ! no ! no ! 



38 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Col. {Turning^ Pshaw! That infernal storm will 
keep her back. 

Judge. From where ? 

CoL The school where she is to await us. 

Jtidge. During her absence are we to effect 
An entrance? Oh, house-breakers, verily 1 
Come, come ; not innocent now, as when you clomb 
The poplar, high above the red-bird's nest, 
To see whence lightning came. 

CoL Fain would I climb 

To see how far this lightning is to go. 

Judge. To fathomless perdition, with us after 
It, like poor whalers tangled in their rope. (Lightning.) 
Come ! 

Col. Hide behind the palm-leaf if you will, 
I smother, — must have air. 

Judge, {To Plover^ Close up without him! 
{Thimder, the tent is closed and the Col. ajter pausing^ 
descends the slope speedily. ) 

Cagliostro. {Evolving from the blue cloudy and great 
thunder and lightning.) 
Thou white fool, comest thou to harass me } 
Art thou, wierd white of arm of the cloud, now shaken 
At earth to scare her from my mirages ? 
Men who are billowed into consternation 
And high resolving under thy wan waving, 
Are rippleless when thou art withered up. {Thunder^ 

Dr. Squigginson. {Entering^ 
These are the rocks to which the telegram * 
Directed me, which nature sculptured dozing, 
And which religion and society 
Have taken for their models in constructing 
Their presses, as if hearts and souls were cheese. 
O, light of the world, Arabula I hail 1 hail I 

Cag, No more the saddest sight to man, or God, 
The burning of a mind down into ashes, 

* Andrew Jackson Davis. " The Diakka and their Earthly Victims^^ 



CAGLIOSTRO. 

Like lone log building in canon, on boulder, 

Or on the rock in middle of the lake, 

Where, dizzy with beauty, wild birds whirl about ; 

No, nor will poverty transform a man 

A scorpion, hating, hated, stinging, stung. 

No more will age, the white owl, pounce on men, 

Drag them like worm-heaps to his haunt, the tomb ; 

Nor will distempers, which now lurk in swamps, 

Seize cities, tear them with their teeth and talons, 

Dash off with them down brinks to desolation. 

The lake, thus in their own age making them 

Lake dwellings. 

Dr. Glorious ! 

Cag. This Messiah will flood 

All earth, drear stenching mud, with joy, blue sea 
Drawn off by un-Promethean false religion, 
Black hugest water-spout, then upward drifted 
Till frozen into long white streaks of clouds, 
Cold perches for the weary -winged vision 
Of mortals. 

Dr. Is the woman, armed with babe, 

Who was to have revolved the crank before, 
To come now .•* 

Cag. No. 

Dr, Who .? 

Cag. Lilla Lamb. 

Dr. Who.? 

Cag. Lilla. 

Dr. When I left Lilla, her death-frosted eyes 
Were fastened on the wall, like lifeless flies. 
You mock me, toss me over on my back. 
As boys kick tortoises. 

Cag. When clouds, red, orange, 

And white, whirl up the east, as in the desert 
Pillars of sand, you gladden, knowing that 
The sun, the fire tornado, is approaching; 
On meeting Lilla, you will wax hilarious, 
As the red-cock, by flapping thousands echoed, 



39 



40 CAGLIOSTRO, 

For you will find her clouded gorgeously, 
Wiil feel the heat of the luminous hurricane, 
Which is to set your error-crushing mill 
In ceaseless-wheeling motion. 

Dr. Gracious spirit, 

How ? how ? 

Cag. How is the reign of the upper powers 
Who will not drop it, cognizant that man 
With it would be an earth-destroying Phaeton ; 
Enough for him to have the glorious ride. 

Dr. Without the how, will mind continue not 
To dash upon the rocks of pain, despair, 
Be billows plunging down with arm-hid faces ? 

Cag. No. Mind will rest, as goat on a sunny jag. 
The Savior will be born before cock-crow 
To-night at Willard's house. 

Dr. When.? where.? Oh! 

Cag. (^Disappearing.') Lilla 

May not be needed there, and yet she may ; 
If strong of mind, she can project her spirit 
Thither, as angler his long leaded line. 
Go to the tent where you are in request. 

Z^r. Benignant spirit ! Save I read souls, minds, 
As well as kidneys, lungs, nay, rightly mate them. 
Which is the main thing, — not the hawk with herring, 
The snake with eel, nor weed with flower, nor boar 
With gay gazelle, nor tiger with milch cow, 
Eagle with goose, nor camel with humped cat. 
That one may choke, outrun, eat, rend, the other, 
Or race companionless with sun from clearance 
In cloud to clearance, wooded stream to stream, — 
I see no hope for man. Illumine not 
The labyrinth of life, if thou thereby 
Increase its shadows ; if thy stream from heaven 
Channel no outing for humanity. 

(^East and west the rain dashes and the sim bursts 
grandly, at which sight the doctor is transfixed 
with delight ; but he soon descends evincing by his 



CAGLIOSTRO. 



41 



stops and gestinrs great perturbation. As the 
Colonel enters, Patsy, ivhite-sJieeted and eating a 
pumpkin, appears^ * 
Patsy. With pumpkin one hits two birds at one 
welt, 
Two vultures, clawing hunger and thirst ! 

{Ope7is the tent and whispers in the Judge s ear.) 
Judge. (^Coming ont followed by Plover.) A spirit 
Could that have been ? 

Col. Maybe it was not closed, 

Or one of us did it unconsciously. 
Judge. You lie, sir, and you know it. {To Plover.) 
Did you hear 
A voice ? 
Plover. No. 

Judge. Not that I must offer up 

My darling, even as Abraham did Isaac, 
Or Jephthab, robed in victory warm, his daughter ? 
For God is thirsting for a cold, clear drink 
Out of the hard, green-crusted pool of earth. 

Col. Why listen to the buzzing of delusions ? 
Catch them and crush them ere they bite your brain, 
Causing your hands, when full of work, to open 
And let all drop that they may rub, rub, rub. 

Judge. Delusion ! Are you not my son ? I wish 
That were a delusion. 

Col. So do I. 

Judge. How snappish, 

You cur ! 

Col. ( To Plover) Now ready ? 
Plover. Going to trim my beard ? 

{Col. dai'ts for the scissors savagely.') 
Must I face her to-night ? 

CoL Yes. 

* A spirit told Professor Phelps that he was in hell, and liked pump- 
Uin pie. — Charles Beecher. 



42 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Plover. Why not put 

The meeting off till I am better prepared, — 
A week, a month ? 

CoL To-morrow Willard's father 

Will come and make poor Jane most miserable, 
For he denies her Emma has been found. 

Judge. We cannot tempt his David's sling of sight 
Till armored far completer than Goliath, 
And now we are as nude as savages. 

(^Patsy re-appears eating pumpkin.) 

Plover. The first shot of her eyes may blow my head 
off. 

(^Sits but jumps up when the Colonei-'s elbow is pulled 
by Patsy!) 
I'll play off — oh ! — for heaven's sake grease that saw, 
Else lay me bodily upon a buck. (^Sits.) 

Col. Sit quiet. (^Trims somewhat, even after being 
again pulled?) 

Plover. Hold on! hey! hello there ! ho! 

(Jumping?) Those aire no scissors, but a rasp, or rat- 
trap. 
Each puck was like an eye-tooth being drawn, 
Or rosy smeller twisted from the stem, — 
Sharpen those blunts, or give chloroform. (Sits.) 

Judge. Just let me do the cutting. 

Col. Hold his head. 

(Judge holds it and the Colonel cuts.) 

Plover, Ho ! ho ! 

Col. Keep still. 

Plover. Hello ! 

Col. (To Judge?) Hold tighter. 

Plover. (Jumping up?) Ho ! 

I am no goose, plum-pudding, public treasury, 
To stand such plucking. 

Judge. This, a time for pleasantry } 

Laughing } — at us } 

Col Sit. 

Plover. {Sitting to Judge) No. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 43 

Judge. {St^epping aside.) How mocking laughter 
Will open wide its morning-glory mouths 
Over our grave yet ! Oh, to have to pull 
His boot otf — in all senses ! — 

Plover Ho ! gee ho ! 

Ho! 

Col. That will do. 

Plover. Thank heaven. Here comes the doctor. 

{Goes to meet him.') 

Judge. {P idling Col. aside?) 
Close to the grave have you a sign, a light, 
Which neither blast nor torrent can extinguish ? 

Col. {Dashing away) 
Am I a gawk to quit a place, expecting 
My shadow to remain a sentinel ? 

Plover. {With doctor?) The Colonel, Judge. {They 
sahite each otJier?) 

Col. Where is Fouracres .'* 

Dr. Who 

Is he.? 

CoL My servant. 

Dr. {Piqued by the ColoneVs riLdeness?) In or out of 
flesh, 
Within my sight or invocation, sir. 

Col. {Muttering?) Tight in his grasp. 

Dr. Why am I wanted here } 

Plover. I'm horrid sick. 

Dr. You } Strange ! I see your works, — 
You being to me a watch with case flung open, — 
Heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, — see no disorder. 

Col. He and his wife fell out, — 

Judge. For a mere nothing. 

Plover. Says I, Sail, Templeton is out here sporting 
For pocket, Heaven that he can never cram enough. 
On no account let that good man, — 

Col. Here, here. 

Plover. For you remember the talk that once was loud, 



44 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Within a forty foot pole of your ear, 

It being blackest ice within that distance. 

"Confounded liar ! " says she. 

Judge. Oh ! 

Plover. Words grow up 

To blows, as girls with tempers softly furred 
To women with long claws, you know. 

Judge. She was 

In the right. 

Plover. She was, hey t 

Col. Women always are. 

Judge. {To Dr?) His first wife was an earthquake, 
and he trembles 
Yet from the shock that laid his home in ruins. 

Col. To make a long tale short, he must be-sick, 
For she will then capitulate. 

Dr. {Indignantly starting) Good day. 

Judge. Wait I 

Col. What is up .? 

Dr. What you desire is a quack, 

Some rich practitioner long habituated 
To treating ladies, who forget, nor seldom. 
The taste of health, champagne, ambrosia, till 
They sip disease, face-souring vinegar. {Staggers.") 

Col. Do we expect your services for nothing .? 

Judge. See ! 
(Dr. falls into a chair and vices his head between his knees. '\ 

Plover. Set him off by asking what you want. 
Judge. I know not what to ask. {The Judge Jails, the 
chair that he flings himself into beiiig pulled by 
Patsy. The Colonel tuims aside that he may not 
be a zvitness. 

Patsy. { Whispering to Dr.) Me hoop-skirt tripped * 
His chair up : faix, I'm sorry, and beg pardon. 

* Once, when Mr. Davenport senior was sitting, tilted back on the hind 
legs of his chair, he was suddenly thrown over backward. Afterwards a 
spirit apologized for the accident, " the hoops of her crinoline having 
caught under the raised leg of the chair in passing." — T, L. Nichols^ Ms D, 



CAGLIOSTRO. 



45 



(^Lifts a chair and sings) 
O, were ye the emperor, traitor, who 
First blackens Washington's sate, — O ! 
A plucked Thanksgiving's goose would you 
Be, held up thus by the fate, — O ! 

Judge. Did you hear that ? 

Col. Heard nothing, nor did you. 

(^Patsy places the chair on the Coloners head, pulls his 

nose, and jumps tip and down twice in front of him. 

The Colonel dashes the chair off, seems diszy, and 

mutters, rubbing his eyes.) The opium is at work. 

Plover. What ails me, doctor.? 

Dj'. Hither I see the General galloping, 
The peaks before him like a camp of tents. 
He trips, — 
Judge. God ! 

Dr. Falls. 

Col. Betrayed ! 

Plover. You trot too fast 

Across the shaky bridge, the sign says " Walk." 

Dr. Look ! into him a vulgar spirit dashes. 
As suddenly as rain from cloudless sky, 
Or buccaneers, — to whose light craft, mere saddle. 
The wave with camel back is camel-footed, — 
Board vessels laden low and oxen-tugged. 
Behold the conflict ! Willard's spirit, like 
A ship on billow, falls to mount aloft, 
The only wise a brave soul ever falls, 
And, as he enters Mars, all stand, each shouting 
With an Achillian voice, " Hail to the Chief! ' 
Now blinding brilliancy, the curtain of God, 
Excludes me from the banquet, and, with hunger 
For shade, I seek the earth ; but blazing horror 
Scorches my eyes. A man, white-haired, world-honored, 
With face averted from his daughter, drags 
Her to the stake, all bleeding — lacerated — 
Judge. God ! 

Dr. From her hair, disheveled like the plumage 



46 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Of hen when sheltering brood from hovering hawk, 
Down to her slender waist, along arms, breast. 

Jzidge. My darling, run ! Deny me I — were I dead — 

Col. Hush! 

D?^ What a carmine-mouthed and pawed black growler 
Close at her heels ! 

Judge. I am that bloody dog. 

Dr, Behold ! would he be Abraham } He lifts 
The trembling blade, but it is dashed a clinker 
Into the ground, by a ball of lightning. 

Judge. (^Relieved.) Oh ! 

Col. (^Tossing the Dr! s chair over and seizing him!) 
No time for this damned humbug, I must have 
My servant. 

Jitdge. Let him go, George ! let him go. 

Col. {To Dr) Where that deserter — from insane, 
asylum — 
Whom we decoy back, through philanthropy. 
He having been in our service many years .'' 

Judge. All that you say is true — true to the letter, — 
But, — 

CoL But be damned. {To Dr!) I want him ; do you 
hear } 

Dr. {Struggling!) Force is no key for any door of mine, 
You ruffian ! brute ! 

Plover. {Pulling Colonel who jerks away) You bet- 
ter let him go. 

Dr. Unhand me, instantly, or my familiar, — 
Not spongy-fingered, I admonish you, — 
Will teach you something you will never forget. 

Col. Take me for a damned idiot, or a woman ? 

Dr. Spirit, convince him — gently ! 

Jiidge. ( Whiningly!) A big idiot 

Indeed ! Was not the chair upon your head, 
The elbow plucking, and my fall enough ? 

Col. {Releasing Dr. and ttcrning on Judge.) Drunk! 
crazy ! trash ! {Patsy blows a fish-horn at the Colo- 
nel's ear, and around his neck puts a string of 
bulljrogs.) 



CAGLIOSTRO. 47 

• 

Judge. Oh ! 

Col. You damned juggler ! making 

Of -me a target ? (Rushes at Dr. but stops, having flour 
dashed into his face by Patsy , who then wipes it 
ojf witJi a blacking biiish.'] * 
Judge. Blinded like Saint Paul 

By lightning. 

Plover. Flour, Judge. — Colonel, give it up, 

You caimot hold the cramping battery out. 

(Patsy flings torpedoes at the Coloner s feet^ 
Col. Hell and damnation ! If all Presidents, f — 
(JPinched on sJioidders and legs alternatively by Patsy 
who rises to a great heigJit^ drops, and sometimes 
plays dog, the ColoiieV s ritbbing and snatching with 
both hands on all sides, become desperate, his lan- 
guage more and more emphatic. Plover aiid 
the Judge, in whose faces Patsy occasionally fillips 
beans, step about lively, and the Doctor, folding his 
arms, seniles?) 
All Senators, — all Representatives, — 
Chief Justices with their associates, — 

Dr. He goes a crabbing with two bursted nets. 
Col. Nay, all mankind, — including even myself, — 
Should swear they saw a spirit pluck my elbow, 
Or heard one whisper, " offer up thy daughter," — 
Ridiculous ! 

Dr. Or put you through the mill. 

Or thought your head was leather, dirty shoe. 
Or diamond-necklaced you with croaking bull-frogs, — 

Col. Or aught unnatural prated of by fools — 
As that a man and woman cannot light their taper 
Of love, to go down crooked, steep, dark life, 
But at an altar, — 

Judge. Ha ! no ! no ! her head 

Split open were a sunrise of delight — 
To which I would cry, rise no more, no more, 
Smce you must ever rise with hopeless hands, — 

* Judge Edmonds. t James Parton, " Topics of the Times.''^ 



48 CAGLIOSTRO. 

CoL Would I be so fat-witted a renegade — 
Judge. (Grasping at his escaped thought?) 
That I may ever bask in your bright breathing 
Upon the world, lik^ Christ on his apostles. — 
Col. From science — asinine — as ever to let 
Such follies with tlieir muddy sandals enter 
The Holy of Holies, my belief? (Starts, but his leg, in 
the act of kicking., is caught and lifted by Patsy, 
who aftej'wards puts an immense picmpkin on his 
head. After a minute s effort the Colonel works 
it off.-) 
Judge. Fool ! idiot ! 

Dr. (To Col.) Require more proofs of immortality ? 
Judge. The fool, depreciating, shakes his head 
So violently that he shakes it off — 
Off — off — if it were ever — ever on. 

Dr. He thinks Voltaire, Paine, Strauss, view him, — 
cry " bravo ! " 
{Steps aside, gazes aboitt, and then addresses Col.) 
Not one of them is here now, I assure you. 

Judge. No, never has joy aUghted on my heart 
But when exhausted, white eyed, broken winged, 
Dark with the shadow of the grasping hawk, 
(To Col.) Which you have always been. It made me 

happy 
To think Jane might not be precipitated, 
But might ride on. 

Col. {Flung down.) Oh ! 
Judge. George ! George ! 

Col. Hush. 

Plover. Hurt, Colonel ] 

Patsy. So falls the country, age, that kicks at hiven. 
How can ye proshper, kicking at your bethers } 
Judge. It is not raining now. 

( Walks then tumbles out.) 
Dr. Why his contortions } 

Patsy. Bedad I thinks he has the prickly hate, 
Or like the pracher that George Francis Train 



CAGLIOSTRO. 49 

Was fond of spaking of, he must have left 

His breeches and his shirt out for to droy, 

Not draming that a drunken set of hornets 

Would stagger into thim, and niver waken 

Till he was in the pulpit emphasizing 

Some whopper with a clap upon his knay. 

(^Mimics tJie Colonel, and, catching Plover slipping ontf 

leads him back by the nose.^ 
Ye are the corduroys I must step into. 

Dr. Did you hear that ? 

Col. Heard nothing, nor did you. 

Produce my servant instantly, or, — 

Dr. {Coolly, and pointiiig at Plover tumbled by Patsy y 
zvho disappears.^ Well, 

Sir, that not most delectable ? 

Plover. Gee ! Ho ! 

I pity the whale that swallowed Jonah — Oh ! 

Col. Out-generaled ! no, no, damn me if I will be. 
{Catches Plover who pinches him.) 
I will not have this hazing here ; nor pinching ; 
You did the pinching before, perfidious villain ! 

Plover. Oh ! {Gyrates his arms, and seeing pen^ ink^ 
and paper, writes.) 

Dr. {^Pulling Colonel) To philosophers, thumps, 
pinches, tumblings, 
Are not essentials, minus which minds god-like 
Groan, gnawed with hunger, but mere accidents, 
Burs worth considering for the meat they cover. 
Be manly, flee from sophistry, nor wait 
Till, rat-like, smoked out with excessive light. 

Col. Your orders, — (inuttering) I must have that 
black — 

Dr. Shall hold 

A seance at the General's house at ten. — 
See! 

Col. {Snatching paper?) Hell! on the copy of my dis- 
quisition 
On frogs. 



50 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Dr. No matter, — a message for mankind ! — 

Though on the black waste, too, where were the harm ? 
Whatever truth has been by ancient thinkers 
Vellumed or spoken, or by young ones penned, 
Is found in my revelations, freed from dross * 
Did Judas have red beard ? or spill the salt ? 
No, it was sandy ; what he spilt was pepper. 
What did Diogenes say to the First Napoleon ? 
*' Remove thy humpback shadow from my light." 
Now History, who lies down at the feet of kings, 
Whispers, the Conqueror had a crooked neck, 
Which all his courtiers aped, but smoothes the hump 
Clean off. Ha ! I replace it, just as skill 
Reclaims the lost, obliterated paintings 
Of Rubens, Raphael, or the not-mad Blake. 
You stare dazed. I, spectator of all facts, 
Past, present, and future, — and I may remark 
I never see your modern critics present 
At Sinai, and such places that they prate 
Of, — I hate shams, sir, — wring the neck off of 
The history, cock, that would crow over me. 

Col. {^Slinging paper down.) " Your engine is to go 
upon a bust ! " 

Dr. ( Grabbing paper and tearing it) A mocking spirit ! 
It serves me just right 
For tarrying on the foot-hills, when I should 
Be hastening to the peak — to Lilla Lamb. 

Col. Oh ! damn you to a thousand hells ! You have 
Torn up a whole life's labor. 

Dr. That .? what is it "i 

( With handkerchief over his eyes.') 
A dissertation on frog-soup .-* f 

Col. (^Dashing off.) Frog hell. 

* The Prmciples of Nature ; her Divine Revelations and a Voice to Man- 
kind, by and through Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer and 
Clairvoyant. 

t See Prefatory Note II. 



CAGLIOSTRO, 51 



ACT. III. 

SCENE. — The Apartments richly ficrnis he d and divided by folditig doors. 
A glijupse of the mountains through the windows. 

Matilda Satmderson. (^Entering?) The clergyman 
has come, — at home, ma'am ? 

Mrs. Willard. {Going to mirror from window with 
papers in hand^ Yes. 

Matilda. Your hair is disarranged. (Fixes it.) 

Mrs. IV. (Stepping aside from the mirror indig- 
nantly.) Be quick. 

Mr. Templeton. (Entering and greeting Mrs. W. 
familiarly.) I know 

My way — ha ! — 

Mrs. IV. There, there. [Matilda exit.'] 

Tempt. As a horse his manger. — 

How that young woman casts her eyes up ! like 
An angel floating down against her will. 

Mrs. W. I told her she should go to an oculist. — 
What dreadful weather I 

Tempt. Dust stood hke a fog, 

Impervious as South Carolina's jungles. 
I must have pained you by my long delay. 

Mrs. IV. Was at the General's speech, — I fancied you 
Declaiming it. 

Tempt. Indeed ! 

Mrs. IV. (Pickhig a toad tip from the floor?) Poor 
thing! 

Tempt. A toad t 

Mrs. IV. Poor George's study, pet. 

Tempt. Pet ! 

Mrs. IV Never did 

An old maid fondle a poodle more. You know 
The frog renews his eye and limb when ruined ; — 



52 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Tempt. Yes ; — 

Mrs. W. It and the hydra worm, in his opinion, 
Are apices of nature whereon shines 
The secret of existence, as upon 
A mast in the dark mid sea, Saint Elmo's fire. 

Tempt. And does he hope to Hght his foolish lamp 
With such a fire ? 

Mrs. IV. He cut its legs off twice, 

And would have cut its eyes — 

Te7npt. Oh ! — 

Mrs. IV. But for me. 

Tempt. He thinks he can leap frog across all men, 
Though they back one another to the skies 
In rocky mountain ranges. 

Mrs. IV. Well, George says, 

**Trip up the under men, the millions fall." 

Tempt. How pitiable to behold a genius 
Expiring dolphin-like, emitting brilliance, — 
All hues except the brightest. Christian hope ! 
His brusqueness not a recent acquisition "i 
A genius is no genius save he show 
Some eccentricity. 

Mrs. IV No hypocrite, 

Not he ; no ! no ! He uses those horrid words 
Because he notices the people, who 
Would blush to mention them, as if all covered 
CJp by the glare of the dreadful opening furnace, 
Shovel their fellow creatures into it, 
Like so much coke or coal. 

Tempt. Be not alarmed. 

Dear, — no real fire. 

Mrs. W. Where then does Satan abide.'* 

Tempt. Indeed, dear, to be frank, we are not certain 
That Satan is a personality, 
(^Smiling.) But soon intend to put it to the vote. 

Mi's. IV. If voted out, he may rebel, for is 
Not, to rebel his nature .'* 



CAGLIOSTRO. 53 

Tempt. Quite a wit. — 

Been weeping ? Why, dear, why ? 

Mrs. IV. Oh ! when those lightnings 

Were sweeping earth, as waves the deck of ship, 
I saddened, thinking George must go so soon. 
How good he was upon that other day 
Of awfulest torrents, thunder ! Though all sopping 
He would not change, — how could I urge him much ? 
Moreover, I thought God would pity Emma, 
Aleck, and me, and not let him take cold, — 
But, like the lightning sped for latest news 
Of darling — (weeps.~) 

Tempt. Better off. 

Mrs, W. We meet here, love, 

Clasp, and are sundered. 

Tempt. (Checking himself qtnekly^ Jane ! — too true ! 
too true ! 

Mrs. IV. Nothing but woe, loss, pain. 

Tempt. Pain has its virtues. 

My dear. At birth, it wakens consciousness, 
Our dormant faculties ; child, are not we 
Now being born anew in Christ } All pains 
On earth arouse our consciousness of being 
For glory, for are they that mourn not blessed ">. 
Waken grand longings, faculties for Heaven, 
Pinions that have not spreading room on earth. 

Mrs. IV. Would that he had a tenth of Aleck's vigor, 
Or father's ! 

Tempt, Or their earnest piety. — 

Where is the General } 

Mrs. IV Out among the mountains. 

Tempt. Embodiments of Yankee go-a-head ! 
Ecstatic flights of land espying God 
And, with all races, homewarding to Him ! — 
Be frank, — why always sad } One unacquainted 
With your keen sensibility, might fancy, 
Because of shadows often darkening you, 



54 CAGLIOSTRO. 

As from a cloud, or something you would fly from, 
The cause of your distress, dear, must be dreadful! 

Mrs. W. What ! — Oh ! shall tell you all— I do begrudge 
My Emma to the Lord. 

Tempt. Mere feeling, natural 

Enough, dear. Who of us worth speaking of 
But falls and lies a slab on a loved one's grave .'* 
But you will not keep stubbornly averted 
From graces, sent from Heaven to lift you up. 
We must not live all root, but rise and blossom. 

Mrs. W. God had so many angels, he could surely 
Have spared me her. What had I ever done 
For such affliction } 

Tempt. Emma may have been 

An anchor drawing your bright face from Him. 

Mrs. W. So horribly disfigured by the fishes, 
Aleck would let me have no glimpse of her, 
No farewell kiss ! Oh, it was horrible ! 

Tempt. Warmly He loves us, loves our lifted faces 
So, that he turns their anchors into wings. 

Mrs, W. I could not realize it in that light, 
Hence, absent-heartedly, ran into wildest 
Excesses, — 

Tempt. No, no, no ! — 

Mrs. IV. Of worldliness, — 

Te^npt. Oh ! — 

Mrs. IV. From her madly ravishing memory ; 
Still, in each lovely child I saw her hooping. 
Jumping the rope, or chirping infant games. 
Swinging, or pouting, wondering, smiling, shouting, 
So much so that one day — but it was wrong, 
Oh, very wrong ! — I clasped one to my heart. 
Yes, felt like running off — I knew not whither — 
Until I saw her mother wandering wild, 
Like Jesus' mother on the three days' search. 

Tempt. Oh, were such fervor but directed upward ! 
Remember Isaac was a response to prayer, — (a knock.') 

Mrs. W, I think that you will like these purchases. — 



CAGLIOSTRO. 55 

Tempt. And John, whose doubting sire was stricken 
diLfnb. 

Mrs. W. How even a few cents can make hundreds 
happy. 

Tempt. \Smiling?) So thought Jehovah when he gave 
us five. 

{Matilda enters with a note which Mrs. W.^reads^ 

Mrs. IV. The General sends me word that he will 
meet 
Us at the school, if possible. 

Tempt. Am glad 

Of it. 

Mrs. W. Of what? 

Tempt. That he will meet us there. 

\_Exit Mrs. IV. through the folding doors, followed by 
Til lie who closes them.'\ 

Tempt. (^After taking the paper zvhich Mrs. TV put 
on the table, and walking to and fro. ^ 
*' We meet here, love, clasp, and are sundered." 
Lord ! how did I restrain } That was the moment. 
Oh ! how my lips burn feverish for one kiss, 
My arms and breast for one embrace ! I care 
Not, care not, I will clasp her, come what will. 
My love will out, though, like the genie freed 
From casket, it cloud earth, push Heaven from sight. 
But God ! an Atlas now, I hold the heavens 
Of millions ; if I fall, what havoc ! Verily, 
A Heaven-quake, such as wheu bright Lucifer fell. 
Oh ! hers is such a whirlwind of a glance, 
It carries every resolution off, 
Dashes all sun-domed temples to the ground. 
I will away, encounter it no more. 
How weak, thou will of mine ! Yet, what is pleasure 
But hands across our eyes from ghastly death } 
No wonder that our hands stick fast to them; 
That only death, or Christ by miracle. 
Has power to pull them down. How death, when draw- 
ing 



56 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Our bashful, maiden hands away, will grin, 
And, with bone-crushing and ash-showering arms, 
Embrace us ! Oh I how help but rush from him 
With eyes hand-pressed, as if by bird-shot stricken, 
Or stone from sling ! Stand, I will be no dastard, 
But will pull down my hands, give death an eye 
With which I could drag down the highest madman 
To lick the dust. — Oh ! he, a hero indeed, 
Who runs the howling gauntlet of the world 
Back to adjust what he has done amiss. 
Though peremptory is Thy order. Thou 
Most High ! to do so, still how few — how few — 
Oh ! 'tis too much. If weeds, sown in the past, 
Spring tall before us, will not firing them. 
As we march on, suffice } This would I do 
Most eagerly. {Pauses, and Mrs. W. re-enUrs.^ 
How beautiful ! 

Mj's. W. The speech .? 

Tempt, Youthful! 

Mrs, W. Oh ! — like the speech .? 

Tempt. Magnificent ! 

My carping mind is stricken like John's sire. 

Mrs. W. Repeat it. 

Tempt. With great pleasure — in the carriage. 
From a high peak he points with glittering sword 
At storming promontories, North and South, 
The present ought to silence, bridge with peace, 

{^Exeunt Mrs. W. and Tei^ipt.'] 

Matilda. {Re-entering and shutting door?) 
I have a mind to try her purple on. 
I thought the black owl, dozing on her face 
For hours, flew off from the electric light. 
Of that good man's society. Is she 
A moth around this candle of the Lord t 
Could I get him at a seance, — Oh ! — You ! — Why ? 

Reilph Raymond. ( Treading in softly) 
How have you fared, dear duck ? — mean swan. 



CAGLIOSTRO. t^y 

Matilda. Caught something. — 

Fouracres with his collar soaking — 

Ralph. Fact 

Is stranger than fiction ; is he safe now ? 

Matilda. Yes. 

Not cracked .? 

Ralph. He tells the truth, confirmed by the Judge, 
Whom, by the way, I hypnotised. The doctor — 
Call him Empedocles, how grandiosely 
He swells ! like " peacock which," as Lilla sings, 
" Appears, when tickled by your gaze, to think 
The sunset, sunrise, only a paltry hen," — 
Substantiates them. I have mesmerized 
Our dear old gander, he will fly for miles. 
Make stretching distance slink, coil, hibernate. 

Matilda. {Slowly.) The terror on Fouracres' face 
was surely 
Too livid to have been a mere cosmetic. 

Ralph. A meteorite has fallen from the skies, 
So' large, bright, hot, that we will need no camp-fire, 
Nor moon, for years. We need not now relieve 
The doctor of his cash and disappear. 
Except this fail. 

Matilda. Salvation Plover ! pshaw ! 

Ralph. I have all carpet-bagged in case the scheme 
Should leap the track, go down embankment. 

Matilda. Madness I 

Pshaw ! 

Ralph. When so smart, adroit, in our chess-player, — 
For Squigginson would swear it is the spirit 
Of Templeton who drinks beer, bourbon, chews, ^nd 

smokes, — 
Plover will be no gawk in Willard's form ; 
If he should be, we skip. Come round at dusk. 

{After listening a second Ralph escapes through 
the window, and Matilda, having turned the key 
in the door, closes the shutters. Great sJiaking and 
thumping at the door.) 



58 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Matilda. Wait. {Opens the door) 

Col. {Rushing in and searching about?) 
Where now hiding ? 

Matilda, Who ? 

Col. Fouracres. 

Matilda. Hiding ! 

Why should he hide ? 

Col. I trailed him hither. 

Matilda. Shall 

I call him ? 

Col. Whom were you just speaking to ? 

Matilda. Myself. 

Col. You lie. 

Matilda, Thank you. (^Starts) 

Col, Stand. Why door locked } 

Where is he .'* 

Matilda, With the General. 

Col. Stupid thing ! 

Did I not tell you that I trailed him hither } 

Matilda. I do not know, then. May I ask the 
matter .'* 

Col. No matter ! — I shall teach him decency. 
The General feels unwell, will soon be here. 

Matilda, Met Mrs. Willard ? 

Col. No, nor need we shock her ; 

A pin scratch at a distance seems to woman 
A head off, or a body split in twain. 

\_Exit^ slamming the door.] 

Matilda. Has Plover spirit enough to animate 
Great Willard's body ? Every fibre, muscle. 
Nerve } One or both arms will hang dead, I fear, 
And so will head, both legs. — Preposterous ! — 

(^The shntters a7'e shaken.) 
I hear him, go right back, go back. — What.? You ! 

( Terrified.^ 
What brings you here .'' 

Dr. (^Entering through window?) Joy, hope, legs, 
levitation. 



CAGLIOSTRO, 59 

Matilda, (Recovering^ Where have you come from ? 

Dr, Lilla Lamb. Oh, glorious ! 

Perfection ! 

Matilda, Not so loud. 

Dr. All earth should hear. 

Matilda, I hear the Colonel, — go. 

Dr. At first my heart, 

Like an enormous anchor, fell from me 
Into the darkest depths, dragged me along, 
Embedded me beneath dense miles of mud. 
How could 1 think my engine, Grand Messiah, 
Would start off at the cry of Lilla's infant } 

Matilda. What! shocking! revolting! This shall not 
be. Do 
You mind a dying girl's vagary } pshaw ! 

Dr. What are you pshawing at t 

Matilda. ' Not much — your engine. 

She says " that pain. Humanity's body-guard, 
On picket duty to cry out ' to arms ! ' 
At danger, would disband forever more ; 
That she would be the Joan of Arc to drive 
The foe from earth," — do you believe such raving } 
I thought — 

Dr. Think nothing since you can't think right. — 

Matilda. A demon had false-lighted you, — 

Dr. I am 

No blind man, trusting to a dog for guidance. — 

Matilda. To make of you, as he had made of Miller, — 

Dr. I know the ring of truth, the thud of falsehood. — 

Matilda. After Ascension muslin was all sold, — 

Dr. Did I not tell my wife, it was good muslin — 
" To put on the covers of my revelations ? " — 
• Matilda, A public butt. 

Dr. If I be butted, will 

It not be by mere he-goats, for whose company 
My nose has no desire .'' 

Matilda. They come now, — go» 

Dr. Was it to visit you that I came here ? 



6o CAGLIOSTRO. 

Matilda, What will they think? {Aloud.^ I have 
no money to spare 
Sir, for the heathen in South — South — Cape of Good 
Hope. 
Dr, (^Havmg indignantly stepped to the door?) 
Beware of an explosion that may shatter 
The house to fragments, if he come in contact 
With writeables,— pen, charcoal, chalk, or knuckle 
Of howling debauchee, wild with the gout. {Protected by 
a walking table) 
Plover. ( Who has dashed at Dr.) 
Old devil you,* — 

Col. (^Grabbing Plover fiercely?) Here, here. 
Plover. {Dragging Col. without noticing him) Why 
cargo me 
With a loose herd of fiends .? 

Col. (^Plncking him fiercely?) Halt ! • Damn you, 

quiet. 
Plover. Hello ! Climbing upon my knee to drive? 
The mule ain't hitched up yet. You ought to warm 
Your hands up, clap them on your shoulders, so. {Breaks 
away?) 
Col. Drag me a step or dash my hands in my face 
Again, sir — - 

Plover. Never saw you. 
Col. {Enraged?) Liar ! 

Plover. {Sharply?) What? 

Col. Liar ! 

Plover. No more than you saw me when I first hailed 
you. 
Don't you saccade me like a horse at brink, then. 
This is a rough and tumble with me down 
Just long enough. 

CoL {To Matilda?) A carriage? 
Matilda. {Returning from window?) Mrs. Willard. 
Ralph. {Entering, to Dr.) Mild, then unmanageable, 
like the Duke.* 

* New York Sun. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 6 1 

CoL {To Plover^ Lie on the lounge. {Pushes him 
toward it.) 

Judge. {Su7'priscd at the Dr!s presence?) You here ? 

Dr. Only a cracked 

Philosopher — who, when he sheds his senses, 
His brains, stops not, but rushes faster ahead 
In blatherskiting, having got more light, — 
Can doubt the fact. 

Judge. How .'* how .-* 

Ralph. {Loud-'voiced.) An angel, eagling 
Down, grabs you pup-like by the hair — this wise — 
And lifts ~ 

Judge. Oh ! Oh ! what are you doing 1 

Ralph. Showing 

You 'tis no joy to travel through the air 
When spirits make a handle of your hair; 
Envy no prophet, genius, his broad ken, 
Thus is he lifted o'er his fellow-men. — 
Need me for consultation, doctor? 

Dr, Stay. 

Plover. I want a drink, am dry as blazes. 

CoL Can 

Not have it now. 

Plover. Can't hey .-* 

CoL No. 

Judge. Templeton, 

Is coming. 

Plover. Is, hey } Rum is too good-looking 
A gal to be long left upon the shelf 
You bet that preacher takes a smack in tunnels. 

Col. Hush. 

Plover. You will know me next time Sis, — but, gosh I 
How goes it } Smouch me whiskey. 

Tillie, {Pinched, screeching.) Oh ! Oh ! 

Tempt. {Entering) Ha ! 

Col. What are you screeching for } get spreads and 
pillows. 

Judge. {To Mrs. W.y enteiing?) Bear the affliction 
which the Lord is pleased — 



62 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Tempt. Your dark presentiment is but too true. 
Tillie. (^PiLshing Mrs, W. back.) 
I will not let her in — no, never will — 
Till I tell all. 

Tempt. Ha 1 

Mrs. W, Let me go. 

Tillie. No, never 

'Till I breathe out the torture choking me. 

Mrs. IV. (^Breaking through^ 
What matters your sore throat to me } 

Tillie. Then go. 

\^Exit^^ 

Mrs. IV. {Tearing off bonnet and rushing toward 
Plover.) 
Poor Aleck ! what can ail him .? Aleck ! Aleck ! 
Does he not know me } how he stares 1 

Judge. {^Pointing to Plover's head and shaking his 
own.) Come, dear. 

Mrs. IV. What ? No, it cannot be, — Alerk, one word ! 

Judge. {Bending over to Tempt, and whispering) 
Crush into softest sand her stony way. — 

Mrs, W. What have we done to be afflicted thus } 

Teinpt. {Leading Mrs. IV. aside.) 
God's holy will is an enigma, dear. 
Which He alone can open, which we tangle 
The more, the more we thumb and finger it ; 
For who can grasp the thousand cords .-* or one } 
At most, we catch but threads whereby too often 
We hang ourselves, protruding blackest tongues 
At Heaven, or bind ourselves in the dark and smother. 

Mrs. IV. Oh ! that my mind, my life, not his, were — 
Oh! 
I saw all this, his forehead gushing red, 
His eyes blood-blind, his wan hands wandering. 

Judge. What ! 

Mrs. IV. (Rushing back to Plover.) 
Aleck ! Of course he knows me, — Aleck ! 

Col. {Leading her back.) Come. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 63 

Tempt. Ere having been eight minutes in the carriage, 
She sprang up as deranged, exclaiming, ''Lord ! 
Lord ! home ! drive home, my husband bleeds, is dying." * 

Judge. Oh, Jephthah ! Oh ! Oh ! [Exit Ralph,] 

Mrs. IV. How his hands go round 

{Half suppressed?) As though a — fool ! 

Dr. Compare them rather, madame, 

With those of God creating the spheres of light. 

Plover. Light } Engine not to burst 1 

Dr. Oh ! 

Mrs. IV. Conscious, — Aleck ! 

{Rushes toward Plover but is instantly drawn away by 
Col.) 

Dr. I thought the lady carped at the spirit's method. 

Plover. (^Singing.) 

My daddy was a cobbler, whom 

The Lord had given a soul ; 

*' Dip, dip," says he, " your crust of gloom 

Into the sparkling bowl ; 

Make, make it soft as wedding cakes, 

For Oh ! A big galoot you. 

To crack your teeth, then howl with aches," 

{Presses his cheeks with his hands.) 
" Till 'tis delight to boot you, 
To crack your teeth, then howl with aches. 
{Shakes his head violently.) 

Mrs, W. Physicians — where are they .-* 

Col. We have the greatest 

The West can boast of, Dr. Squigginson. 

Mi^s. IV. What ails him .? 

Di". (^Abstracted.) Ma'am .? 

Mrs. W. What.? 

Dr. Ma'am .? 

Mrs. W. What ails him > 

Dr. Beg pardon for a moment, am receiving 
A telegram now from bloody Mars. 

Tempt What ! 

Mrs. IV. Oh! — 

* Robert Dale Owen. 



64 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Dr. A telegram, pulsation on left temple. 
I am informed this case is much sublimer 
Than the Grand Duke's, though Patsy is — 

Col. No matter ! — 

Di^. {To Col.) The only spirit that has boarded 
him, {Pointmg to Plover.) 
The other in the vision in the tent, — 

CoL What shall we 7ww do ? — 

Dr. Having been prophetic. 

Mrs. W. {Looking from Dr. to Col.) 

This man a doctor ? 

Col. None in all the land 

Is better for this case. 

Tempt. Strange ! 

Col. Would one, sceptical 

As I am , trust in a charlatan 1 

Tempt. Frost cuts 

Grotesquer capers on our intellects 
Than on our panes and eaves. 

Mrs. IV. Fetch him upstairs. 

Judge. 'Twas terrible trouble to get him ho — 
home. 

Mrs. W. This is too hard to lie on. 

Dr. Nonsense, madam ! 

A soft bed were too lofty for his breeding ; 
He'd take the feathers out to get inside. 

Plover. Herrings for breakfast, — 

Col. Thinks he is a sot, 

Though would this were his murkiest vagary ! — 

Plover. Like Richy who went begging for a nip 
From Lazarus. 

Col. He's been of late imbibing 

Too much religion. He must be weaned off 
With doses ever lessening — mean increasing. 

Tempt. The horrors t 

Plover. {Springing with gyrating arms at Temphton» 
whoy to avoid being struck^ preqiLently dodges.) 
Horrors of you, by jingo ! 



CAGLIOSTRO, 65 

Mrs, W. Aleck! 

Co/. Here. 

Judge. Lord ! 

Plover. When Nature blundered, did not give 
You a big pole for a nose — 

Col. (^Plucking Plover back?) Hush ! — 

[Ralph re-eulers.] 
Plover. (Breaking from Colonel and Judge.) 
Forty footer — 
To constantly swing around you, '* Clear the track''' 
Being on it in black or scarlet print. 
As she gives rattles to those things that always 
Go belly-whoppers, — 

(/y pulled back toward the lounge by the Colonelj the 
Judge, the Dr., and Ralph, the last volleying raps, 
at which Mrs. IV., Tempt., and the Jtcdge are 
startled?! 
Mrs. W. Aleck! 

Tempt. Pitiful I — 

Plover. Why not have gumption enough to add the 
alarm ? 
(To Col) You yallar-j an dered, pumpkin-headed fool! 
(Plover seizes., lifts ^ and is about to dash to the grouud 

the Colonel, who Jias pinched him?) 
Judge. Down burst the sand-storms and the walls col- 
lapse! 
Mrs. IV. (To Col.} How rough I stop this ! I will not 

have it. 
Col. (Released by Ralph, Plover remembering his posi- 
tion?) There's 
For gentleness ! I must have my own way, 
Or I shall leave him as he is. Away, Jane ! 
False sympathy is deadlier far than hatred. 

Mrs. IV. If dead, he were in Heaven, and I were happy. 
Judge. Oh ! 

Mrs. IV. Head-gashed Hector, after the wheels of — > 
life, — 
Oh ! Oh ! Release him, Father Almighty ! 



66 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Judge. (Clasping her}) Oh ! 

Would you be happier, Jane, if he were — dead ? 

CoL \P us king him towards Plover) Poor father takes 

it ill. {To Judged) Help me to hold him. 
Mrs. W. Emma, then Aleck, — but it cannot be, — 
Ralph. The Duke, at presence of his wife, grew furi- 
ous — 
Mrs. IV. Aleck, your father writes he will be here 
To-morrow, — but, O God ! it is ! it is! ( Weeps and ges- 
tures wildly?) 
Dr. {To Col.) Persuade her to retire, for he needs 

rest. 
Tempt. He speaks of snakes, the horrors, verily. 
Col. You might have called it crapulence. 
Tempt, Why } 

CoL Nothing. 

Tempt. Noth — 

Col. Being a soldier, he was bayoneted 

When you hit Jane with the butt-end, such harsh lan- 
guage. 
(^Leading Mrs. W. to Tempt.') Come, 'tis the Doctor's 
positive injunction. 
Mrs. W. I will not leave him. 
CoL Come, come. {Folds the dooj^s.) 

Tempt. {Conducting her through them?) Come, my 
dear. 
How stand this longer.? Shall I go for doctors t 

Mrs. IV. What ! yes, do I do ! A dozen, at least. Poor 
Aleck ! 
Never more sprightly than this morning, when 
He cantered from my proud and happy vision, 
Like yellow-bird, to come back never more. 

Tempt. Let not your pain, my dear, be too acute ; — 
Men overjoyed, cut saturnalian antics ; — 
I have not now the fear I had at first. 
I would suggest, — 
Mrs. IV. What.? 

Tempt. I should not, perhaps ; — 

Mrs. IV. Why not ? do ! do ! 



CAGLIOSTRO. 67 

Tempt. Since I let slip the hint, 

May be I ought ; still, Jane, it pains, — 

Mrs. W, What is it ? 

Tempt. Oh ! had not God just freshened me with grace 
To start anew in the race, as Paul describes it, 
I scarcely could have reached the resolution 
To hint remotely that if, now and then, 
You would with glances sweep out nooks and corners, 
You might find dust. 

Mrs, IV. Be plain. 

Tempt, Matilda may be 

Pure. 

Mrs. W. Nonsense ! 

Tempt, Then you know she is not pure ? 

Mrs. IV. I did not say so. 

Tempt. Was her action — pushing 

You back — not queer.? I thought she had some dreadful 
Confession. 

Mrs. IV (ContemptiLOusly?) Oh ! 

Tempt. Well, I hope so. 

Mrs. IV How you frighten ! 

Tempt. 1 know how penitents are prone to act. 
Tear all considerations, bandages. 
From their gashed foreheads, though they bleed to 

death. 
Breathe not what I have hinted, but be watchful. 

Afrs. IV. Hurry the doctors, please. ^Bxit Temp.] 
(^Shaking the door.) George ! George I 

Col. ( Unfolding them) What } — where 

Is Templeton .'' 

Mrs. IV. Gone after doctors. 

Col What ! 

Does he care for the General more than we do ? 

Mrs. IV It seems he does. 

Col. Not till the filmy ailment 

On Aleck's eyes is off, — the seance — when ? 

Dr. {Starting) What seance } Think that I would 
stay to be 
At a scene of murder ? 



6S CAGLIOSTRO, 

Col. Hell and damnation ! 

Mrs. W, George ! 

CoL Approach him not. 

Mrs. W, You must be silly. (^Rushes toivards Plover^ 

Col. (^Plucking her back?) Not 

For your own easement but for his. His wound, 
F'ar more than yours, will needlessly be probed, 
Kept red, raw, gaping, not let heal, form skin. 

Ralph. {At door^ with hand on head, and to Dr^ 
A telegram directs you to remain. 

Mrs. W. Oh! 

CoL Where is the girl ? She did not fetch the spreads. 
\Exit^ kicking over the chairs in his zvay and locking tJie 

door.l 
Mrs. W. Quick ! I insist on a dozen, at least. 
(^Pulls the bell violently, then instinctively arranges the 
chairs.) 

Dr. Insane, ma'am. 

Mi's. IV. Why not have other physicians to consult 
with .'' 

Dr. Their chattering sickened me at Petersburg. 
The Duke was raging, raving, swearing that 
He was a carpenter, — nay. Nihilist, — 
Wanted to work. Materialistic quacks. 
Who would have us look down upon the ground, 
As were we villains going to the gallows. 
And not aloft to Him, who scatters suns 
To draw our eyes from filth, our starving birds 
From adders, venomous worms, came in a_mob, 
Shook shoulders, heads, then turned on him their broken 
Backs, humped with pride, swift-deserting dromedaries, 
Each, all opming that he should be smothered 
Between two ticks. 

Airs. IV. Good Lord I Did he get cured .? 

Dr. Can it be possible you do not know } 

Mrs. IV. I now recall it faintly, — really cured.'* 

Dr. Would I palm off a falsehood on the world, 
Give the poor savage sawdust for best meal ? 



CAGLIOSTRO. 69 

Mrs. H^ I do not think you would ; still, I know noth- 
ing 
About you. Father! George! George! Aleck! Aleck! 
i^TJie table moving^ she rushes from otie door to the other, 

then drops. Patsy appears ^ has pigs head in one hand, 

and zvith the other he takes flowers and vegetables from 

his bosom and fangs them on Mrs, IV.) 

Dr. A mere leaf-stirring breeze from Summer-land. — 
Cease ! heartless, cruel — 

Patsy. (^Eating the pigs head.) My instructions is 
To soften brains with every kind of pounder, — 
Dirt-rooted, dewy flowers that bloom afar — 
Noises, and fun.* I likes to have a racket, 
For it recalls my youth and Donnybrook.f 

Dr, Begone ! I know you by your odor — off, 
You skunk ! 

Patsy. No skoonk am I, but Irishman ; 
And divil another save me shadow can 
Be found in hell. 

Dr. {^Smiling) That lacks the golden ring, 

Which Truth puts on the finger of our hearing, 
His bride. Begone ! J 

Patsy. Pat, in the tint, your rousin ; 
But when the war is done, begone, you skoonk ! 

Dr. Subject yourself to moral suasion, Patrick. 
Great Britain says, **you never can." 

Patsy. {Tossing furniture and so forth) Phew! free- 
dom 
For iver! iver! Down with all such foineries, 
Fit only to be frill-froUs of fat Blazes, — 
The red-haired divil that will dance herself 
Down at the whole world's wake. Poor, blading sowls 
Are pinned right through their hearts on thim ; ay, joost 
Like butterflies in the case in Cintral Park. 

* The dark spirit Patsy told Mr. Henry Kiddle that he came for fun. 
t Professor A. R. Wallace. 

I W'e have the testimony of Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis that the Diak- 
ka, the unprogressed spirit, is known by the smell. 



70 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Dr. You have a noble heart Bow down to reason : 
Let Reason, with her pearl-set crown of gold, 
Now temperate-zone your head. 

Patsy. I will surrinder. 

Forgive me, for on earth it was me habit 
To soften brains, I being — Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! 
{Clenches his fists, grinds his teeth, a7id stamps in fury. ^) 

Dr. A burglar ? j 

Patsy. Nor. • 

Dr. An atheist.-* 

Patsy. Worse ! an atheist, 

Being sinsare, go straight to Hiven, without 
Having to pay a tole, or being sarched 
By Fire, the custom-house official, that 
Will lave none smuggle a joy beneath their oxther. 

Dr. What were you } 

Patsy. (Falling on face?) One that taught the divil 
villany. 

Dr. Then you must be Archbishop — 

Patsy. (^Leaping tip in a rage a7id flinging the pig s head 
at the doctor, ) Phew ! no bishop ! 

Oh ! oh ! why pull the scab from such a sore } 
Pull half out a wild, slumbering tooth, that niver 
Can be extracted from me jaw } Oh ! Oh ! 
Break over again me arms and legs, joost set } 

Dr. Excuse me, brother ; I will not again 
Commit the blunder. Please produce credentials. 

Patsy. {Retiring) I have St. Michael here for rifer- 
ence ; 
Aaron will recommend me as tip-top, 
And Moses, too, will give m.e a char^^ter, 

* It occupied less than an hour in the writing, and some of the words 
the spirit seemed to be unable to emphasize strongly enough by heavy and 
repeated underscoring ; as when the word " archbishop " was written it 
appeared that he could not heap ignominy enough upon it, — striking at 

it with a pencil, and thus defacing it She seemed to see 

him grinding his teeth, clenching his fists, and wildly gesticulating, in the 
anguish of contrition, and in the deepest hatred of the things he de- 
nounced — most of all himself. — Henry Kiddle. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 71 

Or any other thing I am in need of; 
For we are now fast freends, — go arm in arm. 
Show me your freends, I'll tell ye what ye are. 
{Changes his attire.) I am the trumpeter; he spakes the 

truth. 
(Jiushes foi'ward, with yellow wings outspread and bottle 
to month?) Aaron am I ; there, feel my rod. (^Kicks 
him, retires and instantly returns garmented like a 
Rabbi ^ with bottle on head.) 

Dr, Oh! Oh! 

Patsy. Horned Moses, I. 

Dr. {Searchijtgly.) What would you tell the world .? 

Patsy. That spirits are no more a set of liars.* 

Dr. Good news ! 

Patsy. Why fetch ye bad } This is the bishop. 

I biled and thin clamshelled him, till no bristle 
Of superstition did I lave on him 
From tail to jowl. 

Di\ {Turning aside) Still I am doubtful. Oh! 

Patsy. (^Having bitten his ear.) That I am rale my 
teeth will testify.f 

Dr, Oh ! for the test of the moral worth of spirits. 
How would you treat the Scarlet Woman, whom 
The bull-like luture is to horn and hoof 
To pieces ? 

Patsy. Let me at her ! 

Dr. Glorious ! 

Patsy. You 

Play her, — with pleasure show you, — break my crozier 
Upon her skull. {Strikes him.) 

Dr. Oh ! Oh ! 

Patsy. Whist ! sure it's pleasure 

To feel a crack intended for a foe. 
I'll be no future, be no bull a backing. 
And backing, till 'twill find itself off dock. {Chases ajid 
strikes him.) 

Dr. Oh, cease! cease! Reason, unadulterated 
With thumps, hard husks for swine, I much prefer, 
* Mr. Kiddle. t Mr. Davis, Diakka. 



J 2 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Having a god-like mind ; yet must remember 
You were a bishop ; hence, far more at home 
In thumping than in ratiocination. 
Why have you come ? 

Patsy. To offer me services, 

To do the honors, to uncork the rite^ 
If you will lave me, — and if you will not. 
Why, do the other thing — do the tinpanning. \Patsy 
disappears?^ 

Dr. QAfter hesitating?) If there be any rite^ assuredly. 
Uncork the rite, as characteristic of 
A wine-imbibing hypocrite, as blossoms 
Upon the nose. His basting me so hard 
Through fear I might misapprehend his meaning, 
Puts his sincerity beyond a doubt, 
{Feeling his ear?) Which was it, he or Moses, bit my ear ? 

{Extricates Mrs. W. who has stij^jrd?) 
You will not mind these manifestations, madam, 
When used to them ; mere flies of Summer-land, 
Now thickening on old broken-winded Time, 
Near his last kick. Unfortunately, madam. 
Coarse earthly traits most stubbornly adhere , -^ 
We have to crush huge rocks to get their gold. 

{Patsy, French-capped and liveiied, re-enters y andy 
after drinking from the bottle, fills a glass, which 
the doctor takes and gives to Mrs. IV., haviitg seat- 
ed her. After pausing a minute, she drinks.) 

Patsy. {Before a mirror?) Is it the master, mistress, is 
afeerd 
That strangers will judge too much by the looks, — 
Will think the stiff, foin fellow in the sate 
Behind, with folded arms, and niver driving. 
Is the big-bug himself.'^ and the young woman, — 
Complected like the crimson-globed lime water 
In drug shops lit, — in whose arms squales the babby, 
With flowing white dress, being a hivenly comet. 
Who but the mother } Does the one in front 
Think babbies are a dangerous, new invintion. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 73 

Not to be touched, neared ? — hence, that folks may not 
Swallow the wrong dose, on the man and maid 
Is labelled, /?'.s-<?//. Down with all such pison ! 
( Tears cap and coat off, dances on them with vengeance, 
snatches the wine tJit Dr. is about to drink, swal- 
lows it * and disappers^ 

Dr. If spirits be vulgar, be not scandalized, 
Madam, but bask in the pleasure sure to shine 
From culture. 

Mi's. IV. (Faintly, and gazing about.) Where am I ? 
Lord ! in my own house ? {Listens) 
Father ! George ! George ! 

Judge. (Vnfolding the doors, and wildly s tailing about ^ 
My — 

Mrs. IV. {Repelling him.') Go away from me. 

Jtcdge. What! 

Mrs. IV Aleck! Aleck! 

Judge. Oh! look! I can not. (JPoints to window^ 

Mrs. IV What! 

Judge. {To Dr.) Look from window ! 

Mrs. IV. Is he dashed to atoms ? 

Judge. He verily is. 

Mrs. IV My darling husband ! 

Ralph. (Returning from window?) No, 

Madam ; no. 

Judge. He entreated piteously 

For cordials. 

Ralph. I beheld him entering Mars. 

Stentorian voices — 

Judge. I could not refuse him. — 

Ralph. Shouted " Oh ! flowery-arch the way for Willard, 
Who put rebellion, the forest-fire, out." — 

Judge. Hearing 

Those noises, I thought he had broken loose, 
So sought for George to help. — 

Ralph. " Hail to our chief! " 

Dr. As in the vision in the tent exactly ! 
As I have been informed by telegram. 
* William Howitt. 



74 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Mrs. W. Were he deranged, you never would have 
left him. 

Judge. I left him in this person's charge. 

Mrs. W. {Contemptuously) Oh ! 

Ralph. Madam, 

I go ; I stay not where I am mistrusted. (^Starts.^ 

Dr. (Following a few steps?) 
Dispatches crowd now, Ralph, from Moses, Aaron, 
Bacon, Confucius, that the snow, light, has 
To fall to-night and cover the whole world up ; 
That I will read minds, souls, combine them rightly. 
Felicitously. 

Ralph. Glorious ! glorious ! I 
Will sound the tocsin press, awaken the world ! [ExitJ] 

Mrs. IV. {After staring at the Dr. and Ralph?) 
Neither is in the house, — Oh ! horrible I 
Bar every door against that vampire, serpent 
That wound around me with her slimy grin. 

Judge. My darling, — 

Mrs. IV. Do not darling me. 

Judge. What ! 

Mrs. IV. Never 

More ! never more ! A father, brother, — but 
It cannot be, — nor Aleck, — but 'tis, 'tis ! — 
O God I I cry for scalding, scarring vengeance, — 
On all who have abetted her as well, — (Judge staggers.^ 
And must it be in vain, as when I cried 
For my poor darling, whom the crabs were eating. 
The eels were boring holes through .-* Oh 1 Oh ! 

Judge. (To Dr.) Off! 

Begone, sir ! 

Dr. What is this ? 

Judge. Depart at once. 

Col. (Dashing in?) What were you yelling about } 

Judge. Have you him now 

In custody.!* 

Mrs. W. {Her fit coming on) Quick / if you love me, 
tell 



CAGLIOSTRO, 75 

Me where he is ! I will forgive all, never 
Allude to this. 

Col. Who ? 

Judge. Aleck. 

CoL (^Breaking from Mrs. IV.) What! 
Br. Good-day. 

Col. Stand ! 

Dr. I have been requested to withdraw. 

Mrs. W. (^Rending collar for air^ 
Oh, that this were her heart, soul, mind, life ! — Oh ! 
(^Drops in an epileptic fit.) 
Judge. My darling ! can I gyve you to the stake ? 
No! no! {Col. pushes Judge aside^ 
Col. Has fainted, must have water, air. 

{Carries Mrs. IV. toward the window?) 
Jndge. {To Dr.) Fly from our sigJit I 
Dr. The lady needs my skill. {Opens the window^ 
Judge. {Fallijig on knees ^ Supreme Jehovah I if with- 
in Thy breast 
There be one jot of pity, stay my arm, 
Or, with a streak of lightning shiver, shiver 
My knife and me ; but harm no hair of her. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE. — The Apartments as at the end of preceding Act 

Col. {Snapping.) Those who have dogmas, who have 
heads off in 
The keeping of somebody else, on ice, 
Ought never to touch Science. 

Judge. Ha 1 ha ! ha ! 

What ! leave it to you idiots, iron-bound 
In the conceit that with your hand, five senses, 
You can grasp, not alone the whole creation, 



76 CAGLIOSTRO. 

But every possibility, — squeeze all 

To nothing ? Such a clammy hand at that I 

Col. {Fiercely) Will one expert not overbalance mil- 
lions, — 
Judge, You reaped the pumpkin, you were served just 

right. — 
Col. Though these be scientific geniuses,* 
Be Newtons, as one spark, a magazine ? 

Judge. Spark, go not out ! the pack of future glories 
Will not crack off, if you go out, O Punk ! 
Does earth contain but one expert ? tha.t, ^ou f 
Creation has not standing room for two 
With such big feet as yours, — must widen out. 
What a great loss to the world, your death I ha ! ha I 
Fool ! fool ! 

Col. Some men are like Niagara, sir, 
Great in their fall ; I have not fallen yet. — 
Why toss your hands up to to the blind Unknowable? 
You might have carried Jane to the godlier breeze. 

Judge. Oh ! like an old oak, I was split by lightning 
Into the widest supplicating arms, 
Arms never more to fold in flourishing peace. 

CoL Since you know this, gulp it from thought. Why 
chew 
The pill, as cow with swinging jaws, her cud ? 
Jitdge. Know what } 
CoL That supplicants are sundered trees, 
Fit only to be fuel. 
Judge. Know no such thing. 

CoL Wood split for hell must go there, else cold 
angels 
Would quarrel to get closer to the heaters. 
Judge. {Tremblingly^ Add not impiety, or that may 
touch 
The avalanche of Heaven, send it down crashing 
Upon our heads, sir ! 

Col. Let it crash. 

* Dr. G. M. Beard, *' Psychology of Spiritism," m North American Re- 
view. 



CAGLIOSTRO. yj 

Judge. Tut, tut ! 

Fools they who climb a tree, the lightning's lair, 
To shake their puny fists at Heaven. 

Col. Could clutch 

Your stupid throat. 

Judge. . No doubt you could, you murderer! 

Oh ! when a tempest dashes in your breast, 
How help some splashing out in speech ? how help 
The lightnings flashing out, when thunder clouds 
Are clashing in your poor, old, bursting brain } 
Col. Hush ! that will do. 

Judge. That will not do. I could 

Have flattened my poor head in an iron vice, 
When you, as well as he now off, loud laughing 
At us — big idiots ! fools ! — and that grim wizard 
Who left this house in ruins — behold the wreck ! — 
Pelted in me the direst of explosives. 

Col. Big idiot, fool, to not haVe gone pathfinder 
Myself! If you had followed in my steps. 
We never would have tumbled down the gulch, 
Nor have to climb up glacier on the slide. 

Judge. Oh ! had she only passed away ! had never 
O^jened her eyes again on wretched me, 
The Brocken Shadow on the peak of Hell ! 
God ! she is all charred black with jealousy. 

Col. That damned, old preacher ! — but he may be 
worked. 

Judge. Why — O you idiot ! — 

CoL Hush, I say. — 

Judge, Did you 

Slam-bang the door — shaking the house — in the girl's 
Face } 

Col. I could choke that screecher. Was not Jane 
About to slam it ? 

Judge. Where get help now } where t 
The coachman and the nurse next door have fled. 

Col. May have eloped, — what is there strange in 
that ? 

Judge. Matilda knew too much to be slammed out. 



78 CAGL/OSTRO. 

Col. Guess a few cents will bandage her resentment 

Judge. I hope so. Why did you haul Templeton 
Back ? 

Col. (In derision.) Why ! why ! why! 

Judge. Yes, why ? 

Col. (Sharply.) To quench the fuse 

Crawling to powder mountaining around us. 

J2tdge. Yet did not quench it, for is he not summoning 
Doctors in spite of your entreaties ? 

Col Never 

Entreated him, nor any one. 

Judge, You should have. — 

God I did you say — 

Col. Say what ? 

Judge. My mind is wandering, — 

Col. I might have said that often. — 

Judge. O you snarling 

Young pup ! how you delight in showing off 
Your foolish teeth ! — that Templeton is to witness 
The doctor at the operation ? 

Col. Yes. 

Judge. Crazy ? 

Col On your account and Jane's. My conscience 
Needs no Caligula pontoon, or bridge, 
To cross the rapids of the foggy future. 

Judge. Ha I 

Col. Being impulsive, he will, if requested 

At seance to perform the ceremony, 
Comply. 

Judge. After so gross an insult } nonsense ! 
Since Plover has absconded, had we better 
Not instantly secure the body, fetch 
It home } 

Col. No, can't. When they were spading the grave. 
Oil spouted from the ground, as geyser from whale, 
And, like a harpoon, darted the lightning. 

Judge. Lord ! 

Col. The irritated, crimson monster rose 



CAGLIOSTRO. 79 

Sublimely, swallowed Willard and the horse, 
And is now drawing the forest down its throat. 
Judge. Where the retrenchment ? 
Col, None ; we must advance. 

If all be lost, here is my panacea. (^A pistol?) 

JiLcige. Oh ! All along I fancied I could lead 
Poor Jane to a last adieu. Fool ! — Where is Plover 
Now ? Where t Where ? 

Col. With Fouracres stacked, I guess. 
Judge. You will not now shout, '* Damn your hope so," 

— will you "i 
Col. But for your damned stupidity — 
Judge. My what t 

Col. Your damned stupidity — 
Judge. Yes, I deserve this, — 

Col. He would be here. — 

JiLdge. I fathered one so stupid, 

Pie roomed his sister with a maniac. 
Col. No fool to let a maniac escape. 
Judge. How now procure the wretches ? how procure 

them } 
Col. They are in league with Squigginson, that's cer- 
tain. 
Both will be loaded, and at hand, when wanted. 
Judge. Are wanted now. 

Col. That fool-fraud will not quicken 

His gait for any consideration ; got 
Indignant at a proffer of some cash. 
He speaks of nothing but his damned, old engine, 
W^hich I a thousand times have wished in hell. 
Judge. Oh ! may be they show law our trail, and blood- 
hounds. 
With wide mouths, sniffle the air. Whither for refuge.^ 
" Depart from me forever, thou accursed ! 
Sit, toad-like, in thy rocky deed forever." 
O George, George ! — 

Col. Hush! — 

Judge. Come, come ! and throw ourselves 



8o CAGLIOSTRO. 

Before a sister, child ; unbosom all, 

Though earthquake billows of the blackest ocean, 

And crave forgiveness. 

Col. {Breakmg away.) Pshaw ! 

Judge. Cling, cling to her, 

The angel, wrench the blessing from her grasp. 

Col. Such notions, clogging shoes, must be slung off, 
For we must go barefoot, like white-heeled lightning, 
If we would keep ahead of the avalanche, 
Whose shadow creaps before us like a river. 
No time to give our private feelings quarter. 
They must be routed, slain, if they obstruct 
Or barricade our Country's way to weal. 
Do I, as well as you, not have to storm } 
Do I forget how that vile rascal lifted 
Me bull like, was about to dash me down ? 
No ; but such feelings must be handed over 
To Memory, nurse who will go sleep with them, 
Nor waken 'till the sunshine warms their faces. 
Judge. For Heaven's sake wash your hands not, for 
you make 
Me think of Pilate. Even were Plov — he here, 
The rite, without her free, full-eyed volition, 
Were null, though Gabriel should perform it. 

Col. Would 

I have this marriage consummated .? 
Judge. What .? 

Col. Love Jane too much for that. I have arranged ,— 
Judge. Lord ! then the lightning strikes the kniie. 
That voice 
Was not Satanic, as I half suspected 
When you became its advocate. George, George, 
Forgive me for my ghastliest opinion 
Of you, no true reflection of your face. 
But picture taken on a cloudy day, — 
Which all my life so far has been. Yet how — 

Col. Oh ! during the conflict I could turn the grape 
From enemy to talkers in the rear. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 8 1 

When we have taken the high-bluffed battery, 

We then can talk, wipe perspiration off, 

The thoughts and feeUngs big upon our brows. 

Audrezv. {Entering and presenting cards.) 
De doctors, — 

Col. Tell them that they are too late. 
Andrew. I did, but dey got huffed at being fooled. 
Two handed me dese bills. 

Col. Show them to the door. 

Tell Squigginson I want him instantly. 

\^Exit Andrews^ 
Judge. I'll not attend the seance ; I need rest. 
Col. Quick to your room and sleep. 
Judge. Sleep is an eyelid 

Torn from my eyes. Would it were fastened down ! — 
{Turning on Col.) No doubt you would, base ingrate ! 
CoL What ? 

Judge. Wish it 

Were tightened down, like coffins. 

Col. Did not say so. 

Jndge. You meant it ; I can hear your muttering 
heart. 
God ! is to be a parent not to have 
The pangs of child-birth every day we live } 
Oh ! well for those delivered of their pangs. 
I now were happy but for Jane, — 

CoL Be quicker. 

Racing with snails to beat them just a neck ? — 
Judge. And who will say she will not be a Goneril } 

lExit.l 
Col. Hell ! he will be the devil to wield. Would he 
Were scabbarded by Nature, put aside ! 
What slashing, glittering use for him now 1 none. — 
Oh, helpless infants in that juggler's arms ! 
Yes, my long fasting to starve out and silence 
Disease, which storms from heights impregnable, 
{Patsy appears and hops about toad-iuise.) 
Is, to the scientist, an explanation 



82 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Of dreams as vivid as realities. (Ttirns aside.) 

Oh, that I were a god for just one minute ! 

These dogs, that bite the world and set it into 

Convulsions, would be brained. 

{Patsy hops over him as in leap-frog^ then out.") 
Brain fever ! opium 1 

Horrors I dementia ! anything that's rational ! — 

But this a time for drilling thoughts, reviewing .? 

Yet one must put his men in line ere battle, 

Must pre-arrange a masterly retreat. 
Judge. (^Rushing in.~) Oh, it is terrible ! I cannot stay 

Alone, — I will not. Steps came after me, 

And a loud voice said, — 

Col. (^Pushing the Judge out.) Damn these voices I go. 
Judge. I wash my hands of this, George 1 On your 
head. 

Not mine, the blood. I said he verily is. {^Exeimt both.l 

Patsy. {Reappearing with hats, coats, breeches, and a 

straw bed, which he / ips, and out oj them making 

two figures ^ which he placards Vice and Slavery^ 

Patsy, my b'y, since you are a e^ood hand 

At bishop, joost now try your hand at hangin' 

All divils. Pulpits, shinin' doors of Hiven, 

Are divils' gibbets, too, which is why you 

Should hang thim. Kin do it — as well as Squiggins. — 

Quick, doctor ! or I'll lave you none to strangle. — 
(^Hangs Vice and Slavery on the door.) 

Me b'y, act marchants, owners of fact'ries, mines, 

And tin'ments, — Black-holes ! — who, with indignation 

Are flame-faced, as their blood drinched coal, — hang 
Slavery 

In if 'gy ; but noose not your nick in fun, 

Least starving thousands pluck the rope and run. 

{Pulls the rope and runs out, slamming the door. Ralph 
Raymond enters, constructs the cabinet, then puts 
the gas-jets at the point of flaring. The Dr. and 
Smith Van Doozer enter with the sheeted Redeem- 

* Dr. Phelps. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 83 

er, welcomed with lively musicy to which the gas- 
jets dance.^) 
Dr. {Letting the redeemer drop, and cutting down the 
effigies) We hang themselves now ; aye, till black 
and pulseless. 
All that the Churches, Reformations, States, 
Codes, Revolutions, have accomplished, is 
To gibbet these monsters, fiends, in effigy. 

(^Throzvs the figures out, and then lifts the machine?) 
Van Doozer. With such conclusions how remain a 

deist } 
Dr. (^Letting the redeemer drop?) 
There is a God ; I know there is. Law, beauty, — 
Behold them ! beauty, the blushing consciousness 
Of Nature at the presence of her Maker ; 
And law, the falling into line of forces 
Beholding their Commander. — Smith Van Doozer, 
What are you shaking your head at ? got the palsy .-^ 
Van Doozer. {Having smiled., and nodded negatively 
several times, a habit of his when disapproving.) 
Shaking the sand of your surging rhetoric 
Out of my ears. 

(^Enter Mrs. Squigginson and Mrs. Lamb?) 
Dn Ha ! 

Mrs. S. Will you not defer 

Your arguing, please, till after the Savior's coming ? 
When there will be no need of it, thank Heaven ! 
(jComplying, they move the redeemer toward the cabinet?) 
Col. {Dashing in.) Thunder and lightning ! who the 
devil are these ? 
Out! 

Dr. Friends. 

Col. What business here } 

Dr. (^Smiling.) To be the ballast 

In our balloon. 

Col. Dash out the sand-bags, go 

* Mr. Tyudall. 



84 CAGLIOSTRO. 

The faster up. 

Mrs. S. Might strike against the sky ! 

Dr. {^Abstractedly fingering Mrs. S! s hair.) 
What truth in the interjections of a child ! 
Most crashingly do we impinge our heads 
Against the sky, when we precipitate 
A fellow-creature from a flying good ; 
Cries out the thunder ; " Cain, where is thy brother ? " 
Col. Order them out, or I will pitch them out. 
Van D. {Approaching Col.) If you cry " pitcher," son- 
ny, I cry " lick." 
Dr. " Do to another nothing which you would 
Not have him do to you," says St. Confucius. 
Col. Confucius be damned ! all out — this way. 
Judge. {Rushing to the engine^ Who — who upon 

the stretcher ? Is it Jane ? 
Col. No, no I 

Judge. Lord ! can it then be Aleck ? 

Col. No. 

Judge. I must see — / must see ! 
Dr. {Grabbing him.) Hands off! not death ! 

But life. 

Col. Go back. 

Judge. I cannot shut my eyes. 

Col. Sleep open-eyed like hares, then. 
Judge, Oh ! 

\Exit^ pushed by Col.] 
Mrs. Lamb. {Having expressed her disgust by faces 

and gestures.) Beast ! brute ! 

Mrs. S. Oh! Sister Lamb! 

Mrs. L. {Mockingly.) Oh I Sister Squigginson ! 

(Jeeringly.) Child I 
Dr. Ladies, hasten Sister Willard, please. 

\_Exe2cnt both.~\ 
{The emphasis in proportion to Van D.'s nodding.) 
The mirage of the Savior is descried 
{Cagliostro, gorgeously attired, rises slowly ^ uuperceived 
by Van D, and Dr.) 



CAGLIOSTRO. 85 

In the far cloud, by men of science. Has 

Renan not said that Science is to seize 

The rudder of existence from blind Fate, 

Steer from the whirlpool, — death, disease, despair, — 

Where men are dashed to fragments, as were they 

The glass at the marriage rite of God with Bliss ? 

{Cagliostro, folding Jus arms, fixes his smile on Van 

Dooser.) 
Van D. The only feasible method of reforming 
The world, would be to breed up men like pacers, 
Trotters, and circus leapers, as suggested 
By one G. G. in a magazine.* The state 
Should not permit the ailing or poor to wed, 
Nor criminal classes, — 

Dr. How prevent them, pray, 
Except one with his sight could vivisect, 
Not only kidneys, lungs, but hearts, souls, minds ? 

Van D. By hanging them, if needs be, as old Harry 
And good Queen Bess did, — and it should destroy 
All weaklings at their birth. Celibacy 
And foeticide should be encouraged, dykes 
Against tempestuous over population. 

Dr. (^Having wJiistled and gestured wildly^ 
Most feasible ! Good Heavens ! most feasible ! 
Most feasible. 

Van D. Mere sentiment, white trailing 

Robe of Humanity, the infant, must 
Be shortened, nay, cast off, if he vv^ould not 
Grow hopelessly a womanish priest, — it must 
Not trip him, bump his head, now that he walks. 

Dr. ( With gnsto and shutting his eyes, irr'itated by 
Van Doozers nodding.) 
The peacocks, in an isle, now arid grown, 
Once met in furious pride to extirpate 
The paler of their specie. These were flown 
At, and the sun sank, and the moon rose late, 

* George Guilderbury must have plagiarized from Dr. T. M. Coan's 
Galaxy Paper on reforming the world. 



86 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Before the war was hushed, and then each pale 
Lay motionless. " Hip-hip, hurray ! hurray ! " 
The conqueror's hawked. — Ha ! they began to fail, 
And their eyes opened with cold, breaking day. 
Dying they gurgled, " Oh ! to Future's eyes 
What a huge, ugly monster we shall be. 
Known only by our foot-marks ! our lark-rise 
Of music Earth will hear no more ; nor see 
The sun-rise of our spread, — at which men stare, 
Turning their backs oh Sol, mere rising bare, 
On highway ! — nor behold our strut again. 
Dry is our well, —thQpa/er was the keu." 

Van D. Poor Lilla's fable prettily baby-caps 
The theme, but does not helmet it for battle. 

Dr. Pray, who your trainers } Who your jockies ? who 
The breakers 1 trainers } 

Van D. G. G. stated not. 

Dr. Perhaps the horses are to train each other .? 

Van D. I answer, spirits — such as these grand 
peaks * 
May draw to earth, — -say, in a thousand years, — 

Dr. (^In Disgust?) Some fools are distant-sighted; 
what is grand 
Afar off, is despicable when near ; 
The eagle's eye falls into that of a midge. — 

Van D. For I would be no visionary. 

Dr. How 

I pity him, Van Doozer, with an ear 
For only the maddening discords ! pity the owl, 
Wildered mid New Year's chimes, or chimes rejoicing 
With Victory, Peace I Oh ! each sweet Is may not 
Be, — God, or Hope, may not be — such a Savior 
May not be, — Earth, sky, planets, — all may not 
Be, saving within my mind. — Ha ! ha ! 

Van D. May not be,t 

The music of the future, grand finale. 

* Professor Wallace, Fortnightly Review^ and Mr. Buckle, History of 
Civilization. t Emanuel Swedenborg and A. J. Davis. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 87 

Dr. 'Tis easier to convince posterity 
By millions, than contemporaries singly, 
And this consoles me. 

Van D. Fly to the millions, brother ! 

Tempt, (^Entefiiig^ Egad ! ha ! that the engine, pa- 
tented 
To lift Creation out of the eely mud ? 

Ralph. {RiLshing to Tempt ^ By Jonathan, the man I 
want. I called 
To-day upon you, Mr, Templeton, 
To interview you. Last September, tenth, 
Thirteenth, and fourteenth, and October sixth, 
November sixteenth, seventeenth, generally 
At ten o'clock in the evening, were you conscious 
Of being present at our seance ? 

Tempt. What .? 

Ralph. Did you wake up with an aching head .'' 

Tempt. What do 

You mean, sir } 

Van D. That your spirit is a diner 

Out.* (^Noises, and the gas-jets leap^ 

Tempt. Precious must your nut of meaning be, 
Since, like a squirrel, fountain-tailed, you hide it. 
You are requested to postpone this farce 
Indefinitely. Close the windows, — windy. 

Dr. Mistaken ! 'tis not windy. Did you not 
Drink often at my expense, sir? 

Tempt. What .? 

Ralph. Beer, bourbon. 

Tempt, The Colonel must be drafting a regiment 
Of the deranged. Beer, bourbon ! — Oh 1 snakes ! vipers ! 
These banished, all were Paradise ; while they 

(^Cagliostro smiles at Templeton, and disappears.^ 
Are extant, never an Eden. — \To Col.) George, your sister 
Was made to swallow rum, when physically 
Unable to resist. Must she be dragged 
Down } or must he be lifted up t Decide ; 
Which is it, Heaven or Hell ? 

♦ R. D. Owen. 



8S CAGLIOSTRO, 

Col Hell ! 

Ralph. Templeton, 

Do you not like long tunnels best, because, 
In them, you have a chance to snatch a swig 
Without eyes shining, like segars, at you ? 

Mrs. L. (^re-entering?) Go on without her ; she wants 
too much coaxing. 

Tempt. Oh ! to be thus calumniated drives 
Me mad. Were it aught but the beastliest 
Of— Oh! 

Dr. Birds on the wing conceal the feet 

That ran in dirty places. 

Tempt, George, where is 

Your father } 

Col Jaded out. 

Tempt. Strange, — very strange ! 

Col You saw me lead him forcibly from here. 

Tempt. Reminded me of the Man in the Iron Mask. 

Col He's old now, water-covered ice, — can bear 
Scarcely the shadow of the cawing crow. 
Much less the hungry talons of the osprey, 
Suspense, upon its restless flight of torture. \^Exit^ 

Tempt. (Following.) Indeed! Is your poor sister 
then so strong. 
She can arm ofl" so grim a bird of prey .'* 
Doctors how dilatory ! Oh ! the spirit 
Of Daniel rushes through my arms. [^Exit.'] 

Dr. {Gazing about.) It don't. 

Mrs. L. Dear Lilla, Ijere yet .'' 

Col {To Mrs. W. at door.) Come. {Tempt. re-ente7's.) 

Mrs. W. No ; I'm no fool. 

Tempt. Indeed not. 

Mrs. W. {To Tempt?) It is strange, indeed, that you, 
After advising me the way you did, 
Should suddenly whirl about and push me on. 

Tempt. Must we act after, as before, fresh knowledge.-* 

Col. For Aleck's reputation make no scene. 

Tempt. Paul, after hearing the voice, "Why perse- 
cutest 



CAGLTOSTRO. 89 

Thou me ? " desisted. That thing will not bite 
You, — come, dear. 

Col. Come, come. — (^Music, and the gas-jets danced) 
Mrs. IV. What is that ? 

Tempt. Clap-trap, 

My dear. 

Mrs. IV. George, why this hubbub ^ Are you raising 
A fog for him to steal home under ? I 
Am no Xantippe with a pail of water. 

(^S/ie retreats followed by the Col^ 
Nor will I now be treated, as if one. 

Col. Come ! Thought you were afraid to stay alone, 
Though Mr. Templeton kindly volunteered 
To keep you company. Come. 

Mrs. W. Be again 

Crushed ! 

Dr. Will this lady be again crushed t {No thumps^ 

No! 
Mrs. S. Fear not ; I do not wonder you are timid. 
Oh ! how I trembled ere beholding Birdie 
And Birdie's papa ! Ever since, the seance 
Has been a bath refreshing, nerving, gladdening. 
Tempt. One making you the cleaner in your heart } 
Vail D. (To Dr.) Why is it preachers cannot meet 
without 
Butting each other ? 

Dr. Instinct, like Cologne goats. 

Mrs. L. Ha! ha! 

Van D. No, doctor ; but because each feels 

Strongly in his own head, what in the other's 
He plainly sees, the horn of anti-Christ. 

Col. For Heaven's sake douse this drum ecclesiastic ! 
Sounds nothing but dead marches to the world. 

Mrs. S. Have you a darling gone .'^ may be my Birdie 
Will go to her and tell her you are here. 
Mi's. IV. George, raise the light. 
Dr, No ; spirits cannot bear 



90 CAGLIOSTRO, ^ 

Light, madam, any more than you can bear 

A crawling, green, cold glow-worm on your eyes. 

Col. {To Dr.) Now open fire — 

Mrs. W. With prayer. 

Col. No. 

Te7npt» Prayer by all means. 

Col. No time, no time. 

Tempt. To pray is not to lag, sir, 

But, like an ilk, to kneel on highest speed 
Above the land-slide, over the precipice. 

Mrs. L. ( Tired of listening.) 
Lilla says that John Keats — who, had he not 
Been killed, would have been perfectest of poets — 
And she are one, as Mother Lee and Christ 
Are thought to be by the Shakers. See how funny 
She is. She says that Shakers are Christians living 
Near the much too fresh diggings of the Bible. 

Col. Hell and damnation ! 

Mrs. W. George ! 

Tempt. We should uncover, 

Not only heads of hats, but minds, hearts, tongues. 
Of harshness, in the presence of ladies, sir. 

Col. Damn it, we are refining so that — 

Tempt. We ! ! 

Mrs. W. Offer the prayer up, Mr. Terapleton. 

Tempt. With all my heart. 

Col. Hell I Silent prayer 

Is loudest, being sincerest. When one drowns. 
Must we kneel, bow, or dash through the waves to him } 

Tempt. Your dashing after him would be a prayer, 
A note so high that all the seraphims 
Would listen for a second, then would find 
It was no discord to their symphony. 
The grandest of composers, from whose harp 
Spring solar systems, melodizing space. 
Having arranged for it ere time began. 
As for true miracles, not cheats, illusions. 

Mrs. L. Pugh 1 will it ever begin } 



CAGLIOSTRO. 91 

Dr. Do form the circle, 

The rainbow after Superstition's deluge. 
(Around the table ^ which begins to swing, they sit, facing 
tJie cabinet^ 

Mrs. W. (Spri7tgi7tg 2//.) Lord ! George ! George I 

Col. Hush ! sit down — sit down. 

Mrs. S. Mere zephyr. 

Tempt. {To Col.^ Your plunging, like a faithful mas- 
tiff, after 
The General, dragging him to the shore of duty, 
Would be just such a prayer. 

Col. By shore of duty 

I know not what you mean, and will require 
An explanation. 

Tempt. Very well, sir ; when } {Raps.^ 

Mrs. W. Oh! 

Tempt. Trickery ! 

Dr. Positively no admittance 

To any spirit not a philosopher. (Increase of raps.) 
Only the highest, truest, will be welcome. 

{Louder raps.) 
The greatest of you all will rap, none other. 
{Raps londer and more numerons.) 

Tempt. No better than their brethren now on earth. 

Dr. The wisest of the Seven Old Grecian Sages 
Will be the spokesman. 

(Raps are so loud^ mimerons, and prolonged, that the Dr. 
is disgusted?) 

I decline to help 
Any more out of Charon's boat of raps, — 
Most precious time ! all must excuse me. 

Tempt. Should 

Make time to sieve such venerable ashes. 

Col. (Savagely^ to Dr.) Fouracres and the General 
first. 

Dr. Shall not. 

One would suppose the least important thing 
Here, is the Physical Savior of the Race, 



92 CAGLIOSTRO. 

To which all eyes fly, flocks from drear sea-wandering, 

Deep-diving, prairie-wrecking, foresting, 

Or orcharding for insect, worm, seed, fruit. 

Caving, and crowding by millions — Vogel-berging — 

In scientism and narrower superstition. 

Col. You circle damnably bird-like ere you perch ! 

Dr. Say blessingly, as Nature in bright fruit, 
Grand spheres, or God, in His eternity. 

Tempt. Father of light — 

Dr. Hail, most illustrious friends ! 

Who from the past ascend and arch the earth, 
As over the snow-plains, pinnacled, domed, mosqued, 
Towered, castellated, mirage of the world. 
Its glittering frauds, its misery, pale and prostrate, — 
The streamers, merry dancers. You behold 
The Savior coming in the morning clouds 
Of Lilla down to men, and hence, a preface 
Would be but lanterning the sunrise. Cast, 
O Thou first Cause ! who momently breathest millions 
Of universes into love, called space, 
Thy glance, like a Niagara, over us. 
To cleanse us worthy of this dispensation, 
This feature which alone resembles Thine, 
That none may cry, like Aristotle ; '' I 
Was born in foulness, in anxiety 
Have lived, and now depart in perturbation." 

Tempt. Father of light ! beneath whose wings extended 
Ten million solar systems, swans with flocks, 
Float ceaselessly to nestle at Thy breast. 
Without whose warmth they all would perish, drift 
Down dark Niagaras, be impinged to pieces, — 

Mrs, L. Heard preachers like you before — to our 
long grief — 

Tempt. I, in the name of Thy beloved Son, ask 
For these blind folk commiserating rays. (^Noises.) 

Van D. The goose imagines God the biggest goose. 

Mrs. S. Most Christians in their lives treat Him as 
such. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 93 

Dr. (^Singing nervously ?) •' Oh I how fairer than day is 
the land"--(/SV^/i-.) 

Mrs. Z., Van D., and Mis. S. " Which by vision we 
soon will have here, ( Violm plays) 
When the dearest will grasp up our hand, 
Or will wipe from our eye the sad tear." 

Mrs. S. I know you by your playing, love ! O Henry ! 
All parable is now over, over.* 

Br. Question 

No spirit, dear ; he may be garrulous, — 

J/;x aS'. I knew you could not help but come to-night. — - 

Z>r. Delay us, be an Ancient Mariner. 

(^ spij'it appears.) 

Mrs. S. Henry was never garrulous. — .Rebecca, 
Dear, merriest daughter of our merry mother. 
Old England, welcome ! How bright memories flutter, 
And chirp about me, flocks of English sparrows ! 
With you I went to hear the saintly Irving, 
In his miraculous "kirk." f With you I read, — 

Dr. Oblige me, dear, by simply bowing to friends. — 

Mrs. S. Disputed with my arm around your waist, — 

Dr. You will have all eternity to talk. — 

Mrs. S. Hoped, vowed to follow Truth, eastward or 
westward, 
That She should not, still further off in thickets, 
Complain, " I die of thirst. No one will creep 
To me with water ; she may tear her train. 
Or mark her arm." 

Dr. What ! my first love ? — O, Mary ! 

Within my heart your room is as you left it, 
No object sacrilegiously eloined, — 
Thrown out ; no book, chair, flower displaced. I sit 
Within it oft, expecting you will enter. 
Your virtue-slippered feet reverberating 
So plainly that you seem not yet departed. 
But hastily returning, open-armed, 
For one more kiss, embrace. 

* Lady Hester Stanhope. 

t See Li/e of Edward Irving^ by Mrs. Oliphant 



94 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Mrs, L. Pugh ! you ? begone ! 

Big porpoise ! that, upon the. finest day, 
Would fetch a storm along wherever you rolled ! 
Sneak ! that in the day would bend to lift no stone, 
But in the night, when I lay fast asleep. 
Would break my windows in, smash in my skull. 
Uncover me and Lilla to dire draughts ! 

Dr. Pythagoras, most welcome ! I admire 
The five years' silence of your neophytes ; — 
'Twas a high mountain source of a broadening river — 

Mrs. L. Yet, never did I in my drunkardness — 

Dr. Of wisdom. — Will not sister Lamb restrain ? — 

Mrs. L. While my poor post of a husband held a horse. 
Or sponged a mule, or wagon, for a drink, — 
Smother a child in bed, or let one tumble 
Into a tub and drown, as you did, after 
Returning home from church, where, in the hymning, 
You and your old hag mother had been steepling 
On either side of that black-whiskered villain. 

Tempt. Is not the atmosphere here most miasmal ? 

Dr. Uncharitable thoughts, retaliations. 
Are tools of the Stone Age, sister Lamb, which Christians 
Use with a savage's dexterity. 

But which hands, softened with enlightenment, never 
Should touch. 

CoL Touch bottom and rebound soon, or — 

Dr. Meet is it, love, you come to share my glory. 

Mrs. L. How dare you come to see my Lilla crowned ? 
You'd rather see her gibbeted. 

Te7npt. We leave 

This tunnel. Black-hole ; Colonel, lead. 

Mrs. W. Yes. 

Co/. Nervous ? 

Tempt. Of what } Pshaw ! not a particle. 

Mrs. L. {The spirit retreating, having by posture and 
gesture ptirposely irritated her?) You better 
Go, you old barren slattern ! — 

Mrs. S. Sist — 



CAGLIOSTRO. 95 

Mrs, L. That used 

To break a character and heart, Uke eggs, 
Into your tea at every meal, to make 
It tasty, as with milk from clover meadow. 

Z>r. Quiet, dear sister, till the Savior's birth, 
The rainbow has been rounded on the earth. 

Mrs. L. How dare she come here ? I would cut my 
throat 
To get at her. How happy but for her ! 
Between the stitches of her hymn and prayer, — 
Ha ! making dresses for the brighter world, 
Without once mending the tatters that she wore, — 
She told me how that devil wanted me 
At the camp-meeting, — soul-trap ! 

( The spudt appears as a girl^ 

Mrs. S. Birdie ! Birdie ! 

O fairest, brightest blossom of my love ! 

Mrs. L. You nasty, gaby, snuffy brat, that came 
In where you had no right to come ! 

Tempt, Oh ! shame ! 

The heat of Satan here is most oppressive. 

Mrs. S. Decking yourself with seaweeds like a crab, 
The Httle mimicking brother of the world. 
You darling ? Kiss me, lay your cheek on mine. 
Did papa not come too ? 

Spirit. Qhi torn dress and seaweed^ O mamma ! mam- 
ma ! 
Does mamma not know Emma, who was drowned? 
Whose grave is morning-gloried .-* that she did 
Not kiss good-by to .'* 

Mrs. W, What ! my God ! my child, — 

My Emma ? 

Spirit. Your own Emma, now an angel. 

Mrs. W. Oh ! I must clasp my darling. 

Col. Jane, be cautious. 

Spirit. No, mamma ; it would make me melt from you, 
And never might you see me any more. 
Sad was I when the Savior, kissing me, 
Hid you from sight, though only a moment. 



96 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Mrs. W. Oh! 

Were papa and mamma not, my darling Emma, 
The first-born of your loving lips ? first angel 
That broke through the bright, divine and everlasting 
Impression of the Savior's mouth on yours ? 

Spirit. Yes, mamma, that he might lift you up, too, 
Though I thought you too heavy for his knee ; 
He smiled and said, I might go down to you ; 
And soon I saw with pain that you loved me 
Too madly, mamma. Oh ! in the lilac lane 
You found a girl, and in your heart declared 
She had no mamma, else she were not lost. 
Though was I not myself once lost in the woods, 
When after morning-glories ? 

Mrs. IV. Oh! 

Spirit. Fool's errand 1 

For, like good children, they stay round the house, 
As you told me when putting me to bed 
Without my supper, — 

Mrs. W. Oh! — 

Spirit. Though you let slip 

A cake and peach, when you thought me not looking. 

Mrs. W. Did my own darling see me in the lane ? 

Spirit. You grabbed her in your arms, extinguishing 
Her kicking, screaming, with caresses, kisses. 
And shouted, " My own Emma ! " — 

Mrs. IV. Emma, my love ! 

Spirit. And felt like running off you knew not where 
to,— 
O mamma ! mamma ! God was looking down, 
Like a hot sun, upon you, till that moment. 
When, clouding his face, he turned a.wa.y forever — 

M?^s. IV. My God ! — 

Spirit. It seemed. Thick, choking darkness gathered 
Then all about me, — 

Mrs. IV. Why did you not speak ? — 

Spirit. Till up the sun whirled, like a fire tornado. 
When you recalled Lord Jesus' half-crazed mother 
Upon the three days' search. 



CAGLIOSTRO. gj 

Mrs. IV. Oh ! I must clasp 

My darling angel, Emma, to my heart, 
Must never let her go. 

Tempt. Step cautiously ; 

When in the dark, you must expect a downfall 
Through scratching briars, or into snake-holes, bear-traps. 
May get your head lopped off. 

Col. (^Bitterly at his own powerlessness) Ha ! 

Tempt. Ha-ing at ine^ 

Sir? 

Mrs. IV. Emma, one kiss ! Oh, one caress ! 

Spirit. No, mamma, 

I cannot till, by a second ceremony. 
You heal dear papa, whose poor head you gashed 
Red open with your actions, for he thought 
You knew of the flaw, were baffling it from mind. 

Mrs, IV, My God ! what flaw ? 

Tempt. What flaw ? 

Col. (^Puzzled.') No flaw ! Dam'd strange ! 

Mrs, IV. Did you and father not make sure of the 
law ? 

Col. Assuredly, and did our best to make 
Him think so, but, — 

Mrs, W. But what ? 

Col. It preyed on his mind. 

Mrs, W. What.? 

Col. That, as the judge who granted his divorce 

Became insane, the judgment may be questioned, 
Reversed. 

Mrs. IV. Oh! 

Spirit. This is why dear papa took 

To drink, though on the secret. 

Tempt. Ha ! 

Spirit, " Forgive him, 

Ma. Pitying, lift him up. Faith is the walking 
On tip-toe through this slushy world." 

Tempt. What ! 



98 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Spirit. Some 

" May dance ascetically on their toes, 
But, tiring out soon, they splash down like swine. 
Ah ! very few can keep on tiptoe long ; 
The best will slip, nay, slide," — like boys on ice, 
For the delight of tumbling oftenest. 

Mrs. W. Oh! 

Tempt. Now or never, save her, — come, my child. 

Col. Here, no bulldozing, Luther ended that. 
God ! I would end this if I could, — / zvill. 

Spirit. Profanity makes me melt — Oh ! (^Retreats?) 

Mrs. W. Emma ! 

Van D, ( To Col?) Silence ! Or I will be the pitchfork, 
you the hay. 

Mrs. W. Wait ! Emma ! Emma I 

Spirit. Oh ! your calling pains 

Me, mamma. Do not — though it terribly aches 
Me saying so — call me again till after 
The re-adjusting rite, the rocket to rise 
And peak or crater the earth with stars as soon 
As lighted by the incandescent presence 
Of your poor sister, at whose throbbing throat 
A bowie, like the teeth of a springing panther, 
Is glistening. It was cruel, — 

Mrs. W. Sister! 

Spirit. Indeed, 

Who would have pushed you from the ghastliest chasm 
Back into an abyss not near so ghastly, 
And who will prove herself more sisterly still. 

Mrs. W. Oh! 

Tempt. Colonel ! 

Col. Then help Jane by adding a brace — 
Since it is Willard's whim — upon the marriage. 

Dr. He need not, for a bishop has volunteered. 

Mrs. W. Wait ! wait ! I have a thousand things to 
ask, — 
Where is your papa .•* Am I being deceived ? 
My dear will tell no lie. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 99 

Spirit. Oh ! agony, 

To break- my clasping arms of sight from you, 
My own dear mamma ! But I must, I must. 
A spirit flings the bowie, like a fire-fly, 
From your sad sister, and conducts her hither, 
While clouds, the weeping saviors of the world, 
Rise all transfigured to the meteor-fall. 
Which Papa rides down from Vermilion Mars, 
Like Putnam down the steps, or like himself — 

Mrs. W. Emma ! O Emma ! will you leave me ? Oh ! 

Mrs, S. She will come back soon. I know how you 
feel. 

Z^r. Madam, this marriage question, which has vexed 
The sages of all ages, will be settled 
Soon to the satisfaction of both sides. 
How simple are the ways of God w/ien known ! 
With the few fingers of His elements. 
What a magician, not alone with seasons 
And clouds, but with the hearts and minds of men ! 

Tempt, If you can stand this longer. Colonel, — 

Mrs. IV, Oh! 

The morning-glories, pears, and grapes, and cake — 

Tempt. You have a stomach — aye, the bulimia — 
For folly, I must say. 

Mrs. W. The lane, — my darling ! 

Mrs, S. {To a male spirit appearing) 
Henry ! dear Henry ! 

Dr. Hail, Pythagoras ! 

Spirit. There is a disturbing influence. 

Mrs. L. Put him out. 

Spirit. 'Tis Sister Lamb. 

Mrs. L, What ! 

Spirit. Till she goes the General 

Cannot appear. 

Col. Then out with her, — this way, ma'am. 

Mrs. L, How dare you pluck me, you old warm- 
nosed pup ! 
Van D. Lay not a finger on this lady, — 



100 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Col Hell ! 

Van D, Who will comply with the spirit's wishes. 

Mrs. L. Never ! 

You bowsprit-nosed, red, pimpled-faced, cow-jawed, 
Cat-footed sneak ! would you have me pitched out 
From being present at my grandchild's birth. 
When I am to have my eyes opened ? not 
That mine were bunged by flying wood — ha ! ha ! 
A flying fist. " Poor thing !" say all the neighbors, 
She will not bleed to death for want of cobwebs." 
There would have been no good just God in Heaven 
Had you escaped without a broken neck. 

Di\ Why is it, spirit, Sister Lamb should leave ? 

Mrs. L. Sha'n't. Lilla would not let me stay with her, 
But promised, if I came — I use her words, — 
To dress me up " in trailing silks of glory. 
Like those proud autumn rustles in from sea 
To sea, tempest to calm, the Sun, train-bearer, 
That I shall need a comet space in turning." 
Ofl^! Would I go in Heaven if you were there? 
Before all angels I would draw my skirts 
Up to my knees from touching you, you dirt, 
Slush, puddle! — 

Dr. Tool of the Stone Age, dear. — 

Female Spirit. (^Appearing.) We angels 

Have no desire to see your skeletons. 

Tempt. Shocking ! — 

Mrs. L. As you once did to me on the street, — 

Mean when you closed your clams of eyes at me 
And tumbled — Oh ! I felt so glad — right into 
The water trough, and where I — ha! ha ! — would 
Have let you drown, had I not gotten a glimpse 
Of my lost balmoral. — An angel t devil ! — 
Lilla, are you not here yet ? 

Dr. In due time, dear. 

Mrs. W. My darling, if you are now here, do speak. 

Col. Hem ! 

Tempt. I will brace the marriage, end the farce. 



CAGLIOSTRO. loi 

Male Spirit. Will Sister Lamb not go ? 

Mrs, L. No, never ! 

Col Must. 

Female Spirit. The preacher must go, too ; should 
take her arm. 

Male Spirit. Let him remain, for does he not resemble 
A C2:reat apostle ? 

Female Spirit. Verily the one 

Who died of a sore throat ; for in each woman 
He spies his Lord, and kisses to betray. 

Tempt. (^Flinging a rope at the female spirit, and clutch- 
ing the male, whom she pushes in his way.^ 
Human or devil ! I will strangle you. 
Victory ! 

Mrs. IV. George ! George I 

Col. Come quickly. (Exit with Mrs. W.) 

Mrs. S. What is it ? 

Mrs. L. A spirit is pushing the coarse disturber out. 

Male Spirit. Oh ! Oh ! Your eyes are burning glass- 
es, grape-shot ! * 
Direct their deadly fire elsewhere — on him. 
Have spirits, when in human form, no feeling .? 

(JDr. jerks Tempt, aside, thereby releasing the spirit, 
who disappears^ 

Tempt. As I conjectured, they are vulnerable 
As Africans upon the shin-bone. That 
One should have been more expeditious crossing 
The fence between both worlds, not let me catch 
His tissue paper trowsers, like a bull-dog. (Flottrishes 
his trophy^ 

Mrs. L. You brought that tissue paper in your pocket. 

Tempt. Let us thank God for the capture of the 
shark, 
And be not fools, dear friends, to bathe again 
In these dark waters. 

Dr. Sister Lamb and brother 

* Andrew Jackson Davis, The Diakka, 



102 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Van Doozer, go for Lilla, since she is 
Unable to project her spirit hither. 

Ralph. {Re-entering?) Be not deceived by the pre- 
tended capture 
And suffering of a harlequin Diakka. 

Dr. The rope from Heaven is whizzing through my 
hands, — 
Help me to make earth fast. Too many ages 
Has she been foot-ball to most furious billows. 

Mrs, L. Lilla is dead, else she would now be here. 

lExit?^ 

Van D. What ever you desire will be performed 
With pleasure. You shall never say that I 
Let damp upon your powder ; though, if I 
Were you, I would not be too confident 
That it will blast earth, snowy mountainous 
With evil, into scarlet rolling prairies, 
But be w-ell satisfied if I could bring 
Willard and family over to the cause. 

Ralph. Yes, thousands would follow.; it would be the 
rage. 

Dr. How I thank God that I am neither of you ! 
Oh ! were she here ! (^Exeunt Van D. and Ralph.) 

Patsy. (^Entering, haviitg struck ten times on his 
bottle?) Tin sharp. I come to bury 

The Gineral in the consacrated ground 
Of matrimony, that his sowl may rest 
In pace. Where is the couple to be hand-cuffed ? 
Like smiling prisoners, going to the Tombs, 
With paler on the left, and politician 
With pin-wheel of a tongue upon the right, 
And a kite's tail of boys and girls a-following. 

Cag. (^With low sweet voice describing the mirage 
seen through the walls.) 
Into the stream at a crab, which decorates 
Itself with medals and epaulets of straws, 
The crouching ape peeps over, imitates, 



CAGLIOSTRO. 1 03 

And, tickled at his reflection, claps his paws 
Into fine hands, stretches erect, and then 
Laughs heartily into the beautiful First of men. 

Dr, Peace, spirits, peace! I will not lend an ear 
To any other discord ! harsh disturbance. 

Patsy. How hungry Moses' teeth-marks shine ! rich 
ear-ring ! 

Cag. At him, dark spirits, wild beasts, birds of prey, 
Nature, Society, and Superstition, 
Under dark, clashing clouds, dash, swoop, essay 
To rend him piece-meal ere the high position 
Of sheltered peace is his. He does not fall, 
But, with new strength developed, conquers all. 

Dr. Dear Lilla has projected her spirit hither. 

Cag. On lightning, Borak, winged horse of the skies, 
He leaps, dashes at distance, hughest sea, 
Prairie, and mountain monster, and this lies 
Down in its blood, is buried instantly 
With mammoth and sea-serpent by land-slide 
Of towns with temples, schools, both purified. 

Dr. Aye, verily ! If I had not destroyed 
That monster, I might still have doubted, caviled 
That man's amelioration is too near. 

Patsy. I'll wait no longer, I'm insoolted. Phew ! 
{Tosses the redeemer y and, as he disappears, beckons to 
comrades oiUsidc to blow and rattle. Templcton 
endeavors to escape, but is frightened back by the 
tin-pans and fish-horns.^ 

Dr. God ! all is lost, lost ! 

Cag. {Unseen and with a deep, sorroivfnl voice to 
Templeton?) Saul ! why persecutest 

Thou me .'* Snuff thou the candle bright that ages 
May whirl about it, like moth swarms of spheres. 
Lovest thou me so little that thou fearest 
The smarting of thy finger-tips.-^ 

Tempt. My God ! — 

But blasphemy! blasphemy! if men say, "Lo! Christ 



104 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Is in the desert, closet, know them liars." 
*'Not though an angel, dewy with heaven," says Paul. 

\_Hastens oiit.\ 

Dr. Can it be Man is a Sisyphus, condemned 
To roll a rocky god up to the summit 
That it may then crash down upon his head ? 
What can I, crushed and bleeding, answer ? 

Mrs. S. Welcome 

Good Lord ! hail ! welcome ! On my donkey, too, * 
As white as driven snow, which Beauty canters 
On over the prairie. How unworthy the world ! 
We all, good Lord ! " Oh ! would I were a tropical 
Summer to scatter flowers before Thee slowly. 
And, throated with a million birds, seas, forests. 
With angels sing : 

Hail, thou most Holy One ! 

Whose listening is like air 
To each sad, lowly one, 

Healing and every where ! 

Like freshening air, — Oh ! mountain air 
Which reddens the cheek from pale despair, 
Or ocean air, which broadens the chest 
Like wide-winged billows, frightened from nest." 
Good Lord, I have sung alto, used the words 
Of Lilla, just that she might sing soprano, 
Attract thy glance, and, like May's flowery tide. 
Rise at thy bidding. 

-Dr. I would not deprive 

A star-fish of one ray, though it develop 
A large, swift radiant, as the briUiant scatterings 
Of Sol in his primeval whirl grew Suns, 
Lest in the parent I inflict a pang, — (views the 

mirage) 
O, black-winged, blasphemous, thought avaunt ! avaunt ! 
Thou shalt not beat my head in with thy wing. 
Nor break my arm, and drag me to thy eyrie 

* Lady Hester Stanhope. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 105 

To glut thy clamorous, harpy brood, despairs. — 
What ! my own Father could, with cheats, illusions, 
Pull me apart ? a fangless, milk-white moth, 
Who strikes unvelvetly against no creature, 
And fain would lead quintillions over sea, 
Marsh, desert, into fragrant Summerland. 

Cag. {Disappearing?) 
Touched by his hand, each spirit and wild bird 
Whitens, grows tame. How gorgeous, sportive, free, 
Amid sun-showers ! They scatter. What yet heard 
Was such ear-rapture ! Roaring monopoly 
He slaughters, gives all men a barbecue. 
There ! down the Scarlet Woman drops, gored through. 

Mrs, S. Lord ! is Thy coming only a passing breeze. 
Which lets our feverish heads blaze up again ? 



ACT. V. 

{The gas-jets^ being at the point offlaring,, dance responsive to the 
low 7nusic of the spirits^ a?id when they burn low, the rooms 
are faintly illuminated by the forest fire. Ralph Ray7nond 
and Van Doozer have just carried Lilla Lamb on a litter 
toward the redeemer, which has been mended^ 

Van D. The rattle-snake is in her throat. Poor 
Psyche ! 

Dr, Brother, you talk like one who has the horrors. 

Van D. Faith, that cures others, may cure her. — Con- 
sumption, 
A bouquet-maker, picks our loveliest flowers. 

Dr. A telegram ! a glorious telegram ! — 

Ralph. A message, hear. — {Rushes toward Dr.) 

Dr. "All, spirit or human, horned 
With fossilized ideas, infuriate 
To bully, roar me down, will have their horns 
Eradicated, like a vicious tooth. 
To their delight ; for otherwise, blood, ruin, 
Instead of progress, joy, the blue sea, drifted 



io6 CAGLIOSTRO. 

By un-Promethean false religion, hugest 

Black water-spout, till long white streaks of clouds, 

Would drown the cries of anguish, deluge the earth." 

Ralph. Peace ! glory ! Oh, for words to utter our 
joy! 
On, Brother! on, on, on ! on, on, on, on ! 
This message sent to you is signed by Plato, 
Pythagoras, Empedocles, Confucius, 
Morgan the Buccaneer, and Cagliostro, 
Mormon Joe Smith, Tom Paine, and John of Leyden, — 
There, such a long list, you must look it down. 

(^Lifts the scroll zvhich unrolls to Ids feet.) 

Dr. Van Doozer, how is that ? you said that spirits 
Of the first magnitude keep coldly afar 
From earth, — 

Van. D. Or dwindle into a pinch of starch, 
Fall into hysterics. Brother Squigginson, 
If un-Promethean false religion be 
The water-spout, you draw it down again 
By your theistic notions. 

Dr. Be not led 

By your enormous nose — a forty footer — 

( Va7t D. measures his nose with his finger and shows 
the Dr, tlie i^esult.) 
Of predeliction, Brother Sxnith Van Doozer. 

Van D. {Pleasantly) My golden rule is, Brother 
Squigginson, 
Never to reason — 

Dr, So I always thought. — 

Van D. Never to reason with one when the dust 
Of anger reddens his fast-blinking eyes. — 
I wish dark cabinets were abolished. 

Ralph. Do you } 

Because the press would cry them down } what is 
The press itself but a dark cabinet 1 how 
I laugh at the gulUbility of thousands, 
Who, daily, swallow stenciling stuff for manna 
Handed down by God ! 



CAGLIOSTRO, 10/ 

Van D. I dread dyspepsia, — 

Ralph. Is history not, at each grand epoch, molded 
By hidden hands, as nature from the marble 
Of Winter into the living group of Spring ? 
Dark cabinets are the vestibules of progress. 

Van D. ( With provoking slowness) 
And, therefore, am no hasty swallower, Ralph. 

Dr. {Contemptuously to Van D^ Thick are your 
pearls of ocular delusion. 
When you think such a fire tornado, darkness. {Points 
to Lilla.) 

Van D. ( Whispering,') How ? 

Dr. How is the reign of the Upper Powers, — enough 
For us to have the glorious ride. 

Van D, Ha ! 

Dr. Go, 

Go, I feel awkward, stupid, overshadowed 
By such a superior, hawk that swoops and circles 
About me, fancying he smells my doom. 

Van D. Were all my wishes realized, would I 
Be happier ? I would want more worlds to conquer ; 
Why then suppose all others would have peace, 
Were all their aspirations crowned, tiaraed } 

Dr, Go, — why here anyhow } 

Van D. {^Smiling) The snow, light, has 
To fall. What ! fear my presence is a whirlwind 
Against it .? can it be blown off to sea ? 

Dr. I loathe the chameleonic-headed, hearted. 
People who crawl along half dead. Show me 
A man who can erupt his own opinions, 
Though they may cloud, or crimson, all creation, 
And I respect him ; but a thing that crawls, 
Reflecting other men's mud mountains — Oh ! 
Go, let us part in friendship ere too late. {Offers his 
handy but tzirns away disgusted^ Van D. respond-^ 
ing with only a finger) 

Van D. Only for me would you have Lilla here .'* 
I, who have opened my \xins that she might drink 



I08 CAGLIOSTRO. 

And strengthen, and again would open them, 

And with this hand have slaughtered the leaping elk. 

And bison lowering at me like a storm. 

Require no passport, Squigginson, to be 

Here when the last resort, great gun, is fired 

To raise her sunken body to the surface. 

Dr. Great gun indeed ! It will raise up the world, 
Who has gone down a third time, first as I'agan, 
Second as Papist, third as Protestant. 

Van D. (^Pleasantly.) The last, worst, horriblest 
calamity 
Which could befall man, Brother Squigginson, 
Would be his grasping of all tnithJ^ (^Noises otitside.) 

Dr. (Hastening to door.) Ha ! ha ! 

Van. D. (Following a few steps}} 
I say this to console you. 

Lilla. (Li a trance. ~) Ha! aha! 

" My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk; — " 
O pain, away ! away, with face distort, 
With fingers bloody with thick clots of hair, 
With staggering gait on this firm earth 1 False love, 
Thou serpent-fanged with everlasting night. 
Away I Away, huge, rabid Might that snappest 
At weaker-winged, but far more beautiful, Right ! 
The fittest to survive is the beautiful. 
Off, all ye Furies ! go and gulp dark hemlock. 
Mankind are in the Fane forevermjore, 
Aye, in the ark with every beautiful thing. 

Van D. (Mimngly.) Thy fire of Faith, my poor, 
dear child, must not 
Wane ashen-low, if it would burn disease 
Out, but must rage, and, therefore, must I pile 
Faggot on faggot. Dearest, sweetest one, 
Little dost thou suspect how passionately 

♦ Sir W. Hamilton. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 109 

This old fool loves thee. Thou art heart and head 
Over all women he has ever met ; 
Beside thee all seem dwarfs, who might swing under 
The Chinese oak, which grows full in a flower-pot, 
Or might be deluged with one wind-biown dew. 
(Kisses her impidsivcly.) 

Lilla. Dear Keats, sweet Cupid, haste to Psyche. She 
Will scream not, if the hot oil of thy glances 
Fall on her : nor, like a decoy-duck frighted 
Into its primitive nature, fly to the clouds ; 
But will dream on, dream brighter dreams than ever. 
Her love for thee surpasses thine for her. 
Oh, for a life-long kiss ! Oh, for the heaven-flash 
That dies not on true, loving lips, but lights 
Our hearts, souls, lives, forever, like a sun ! 
Wert thou to sail to Ceres, pale red star, 
Nor think of earth but as a rock, sand-bar, 
Or iceberg, which thy happy bark once grated 
Against, nor think at all of her translated 
By thee to Heaven, — not that I foolishly think 
That thou, Keats, couldst, each life-drop being a link, — 
Oh ! chain me like a felon down to earth 
By arrowing me with absence I no, no, no I — 
Still, on thy memory, would I linger bright. 
As Sol will ever on, " Let there be Light." 

Col. {Rushing toward Dr., then intercepting Mrs. 
Lamb) 
This is no hospital, — by the eternal — 
You shall not enter. 

Mrs. L. You old brute ! I shall. 

Col. Out! 

M7's. L. I shall enter in spite of you. Get out 
Yourself, you need an airing worse than I do. — 

Dr. As you were a disturbing influence 
Before, dear Sister Lamb, do me the favor — 

Mrs. L. {Striving hard to enter) You smell so of the 
drug-shop and the grave. — 

Dr. Of staying out now. 



no CAGLIOSTRO. 

Col. {Aiming a pistol at the Dr.' s head) Clear them 
out this instant, 
Or I shall blow your brains out. 

Mrs. S. (Entering.') Oh! will not 
Some spirit please disarm him ? 

Van D. {Disarming and throwing the Col) There 
shall not 
Be a disturbing influence this time. 
Hand me a rope. 

Col. (^Stritggling.~) Hell ! Thunder and lightning ! 

murder ! 
Dr. There. (^Hands a rope, and with it Van D. fas- 
tens the Col's arms and legs) 
Sonny, spare your lungs, we will not lynch you. 
I pitch you on the train from off the track. 

Lilla. {Cocighing) Ha, ha, aha ! — ha, ha ! — Oh ! 

Mother, — 
Mrs. L. What, dear } 

Lilla. Come nearer, for it pains me to speak loud. 
Van D. All Future is her Raphael, he will halo 
Her head with stars. 

RalpJi. Clouds, pouring, formed a canon 

Above Empedocles, I saw them. 

Dr. (^Straightening) Did you .? 

Ralph. Northward they mingled into a water-spout, 
Black bodied, crested and winged with lambent sunlight, 
An eagle that would lightning-claw earth heavenward ! 
Van D. Speak lower, sweet Psyche sleeps ; — there, 

she is wakening. 
Dr. Exactly, Ralph ! What two see is objective, 
Certain. 

Lilla. (Having listened?) Aha! ha! {Cheerily). 
I am after falling 
Upon a bed of stiff, brown leaves. I thought 
Autumn, with harshest voice, which made tall trees, 
Proud Niobes, bow low with sorrow, — for 
It dashed their hundred children from their arms 
And scattered them from reach, — spake thus : " Believe 



CAGLTOSTRO. ill 

No promise, seed, for it must rot ere flowering ; 
And tiiou must come and be my Proserpine." 
My dreams prove contrary. 

Mrs. Z. Always, always ! 

Lilla. I 

Am happy as the lark that echoes Heaven, 
Like a green gap with cliffs innumerable. 

Van D. {To Ralph, entering^ 
The first, bright dogma of her faith has ever 
Been, there is no true lover but the poet. 

Lilla. (^Smiling.) I would not have a half moon, nor 
a crescent, 
Which satisfies the prosy, or half-owl. 
I knew poetic justice — not that merely 
Of Drama, or Romance, — the long expected 
Of nations, would descend, at last ; nor, like 
The lightning, take a flying peep at men. 
The feeling that I was the most important 
On earth was not conceit, but consciousness 
Of my true dignity, the abdicating 
Of which would have been cringing to spiders, mice, 
Been treason to myself and all mankind, — 
Oh ! rankest blasphemy to my Creator. 
I always felt as a half or bound Prometheus, 
And so did Keats ; both longed to seize the fire 
For cold, dark earth. Ha ! ha ! 

Mrs. L. Do rest, my dear. 

Mrs. 5. Her thoughts are wandering, like the breaking 
clouds 
After the Sun is set. — You will arise. Love! 

Dr. (^Kissing Lilla?) You word it most delightfully, 
sweet Psyche ! 

Lilla, Oh! — I'm not tired now, I could run around 
The cornfield, swollen-cheeked with milk or cider. 
As in the game of jocund hallow-eve. {Rises and falls.) 
Oh ! bring me to the window, for I long 
To hug the mountains with my spirit arms, 
As balconied Juliet, her Romeo. 



112 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Dr. The smoke of the forest fire doors up the moun- 
tains 
To-night, dear. 

Lilla. Oh ! menagerie-tents then. Fancy 

The poor birds, beasts, in huddUng, screaming flight; 
Thus, millions, with their features lightning-splashed, 
Seek shelter from the darkening dust, want, woe. 
The shaggy hounds that seize men by the throats. 
What joy to be their shelter! 

Ralph. {^Hypnotizing Lilla with a bright metalic 
ball.) She needs rest, 

Should now reserve some vigor for the crisis. 

Mj^s. W. {Entering followed by Tempt.) 
My Emma's presence proves the seance heavenly. 

Mrs, S. Angels bring us the object of our wishes 
Ere these can speak, stretch out their arms, can more 
Than fix their wondering, infant gaze on it. 

Mrs. IV. {To Tempt.') Did you not urge me to the 
seance to-night ? 

Tempt. I thought it shallow, fordable without 
The dampening of our feet, not having sunken 
Yet to our waists in mud ; if we attempt 
Another crossing, it may cost our lives. 

Van D. Another 1 

Dr. {Approaching Tempt) iV<?, jzV^?^ .^ don't honor us 
With your attendance, save your hands and feet 
Are fastened together. 

Tempt. Like a sheep for slaughter.? 

Dr. You brought the rope here. / have oft submitted 
To such a test. 

Tempt. I thought that I could lasso 

A ghost. 

Van D. You are a disturbing influence ; 

Go. 

Mrs. W. Shall go, too, then. 

Tempt, Come, my dear. 

Col, Stay, stay. 



CAGLIOSTRO, II3 

Mrs. W. Where are you, George ? 

Col. Here. 

Mrs. IV. Where? 

Tempt. What ! playing hide 

And seek ? — Is not this whole affair, dear child, 
As I suggested, a saturnalian freak? 

Col. ( To Dr) Dispense with your damn'd shackling. 

Dr. I shall not. 

What ! at the coming of each kindly spirit 
Must I exclaim, "Hands off!" to this real savage, 
Who has to maul the strangers, the white faces ? 

Tempt. I cannot, as your pastor — and / will not — 
Let you be ruined, — that was not Emma. 

Mrs. S. How 

Do you know ? 

Mrs. W. Peace, peace, Mister Templeton, 

Disturb my soul no more. Oh ! why did I, 
At first, not see my actions were the axe, 
Which split poor Aleck's head red open ? Why, 
Like the brute soldier, did I drive a spear, 
A foul thought, into his poor side ? O Aleck ! 
Aleck ! 

Tempt. Come, be not of the bright elect, 

Deceived by signs and lying wonders. Come. 

Mrs. S. Your child and gallant husband may be at 
Each shoulder to transport you, like bright wings. 

Mrs. W. Oh ! I will go, — which is the way ? the way ? 
Oh, for one glimpse of them ! but one embrace ! 
One pressure to fill up this vacant heart ! 

Tempt. Here, all alone ! — where are your father, 
brother ? 

Col. Here. 

Tempt. Fluttering, like a goose with head off. 

Col. Hell! 

Tempt. Come. I know well the demon I caught was 
flesh, — 

Dr. Must my Familiar now convince you gently, 
As he convinced the Colonel in the tent ? — (Col. stirs ^ 



114 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Tempt. But with him came The Liar, — 

Vmi D. (^Having found something with which to fas- 
ten Tempt?) Eureka ! — 

Tempt. Murderer 

From the beginning, — hungry, thunderous hon 
That, hundred-headed, shadows generations 
Of scattering mortals, snaps their heads off, — (^Noises?) 

Dr. Fudge ! 

I, the director here, will brook no jargon. — 

Tempt. Arms, bodies, — boyhood, girlhood, prime, age, 
whole 
Existences with their immortal souls. 

Van D. {About to seize Tempt) Is that the reason 
of your headlessness ? 

Mrs. L. Alfred I {Embraces Tempt) 

Tempt, Lord I who are you ? 

Mrs. L, Oh ! Heaven on earth 

This day, indeed ! as Lilla predicted. Come, {Pulls him 

toward Lilla?) 
Come, we will cling to you forever. Oh ! 
My tear-blind eyes are opened, indeed. 

Tempt. ( Trying to extricate?) Let go, — 

She is insane, poor thing ! 

Mrs. L. Upon your preaching 

About the hungry, loud, soul-snapping lion, 
A streak of lightning split through the black past 
Zigzagly till it lighted up your face, 
( Whispering?) As on the night you ivied, as you said, 
Your arms eternally around my neck. 
And swore on the Bible that you loved but me. 
Oh ! memory, twice or thrice this evening, sparkled 
Across your features, like a firefly, but 
Flashed elsewhere ere I got a second glance. 

TefHpt. I know you not. 

{Tries harder to ext^'icate himself?) 

Mrs. L. So Peter said of Christ. 

I would have rushed up to the pulpit twice, 
Your sermon stirred me so, but that I fainted, 



CAGLIOSTRO. I15 

And would have followed you, but that I did 
Not want to make you wretched, like myself. 

Tempt. Black-mail ! conspiracy ! 

Mrs. L. All I forgive — 

Dr. Dark deeds may run from sight, but they return 
On us with hydrophobiac teeth. 

Mrs. L. All, Alfred, — 

The tearing of my children, flesh and blood, 
From me by my exasperated husband. 
Your cold neglect, the torture of long years. 
Mouth-twisting whisper, nudging, fingering scorn, 
And lifting of white skirts from me like dirt, — 
Oh ! shuddering from me, as from lidless coffin 
Floated out of its grave of years by the rain — 
Now that I have you in my arms once more. 

Tempt. Her daughter a Madonna, — pitiable / 

Dr. By reparation beat the hound off, brain him. 
Why skulk or scamper with him at your heels .'* 
Nor be, as thousands are, held still at bay. 

Mrs. L. (^Dragging Tempt.) Come, kiss her ! kiss her I 
— seventeen times for birth-days. 
You need not let her now know why. 
Tempt. (^Breaking away tJien catight by Van D) Crazed ! 
crazed ! 

Mrs. IV. These uninvited people will please leave. 

Dr. Brother, shake moral-suasion's hand, wait not 
Till, rat-like, smoked out with the light excessive 
Of the redeemer. Wed her willingly. 
Before your horn has been wrenched off perforce. 

Va7i D, Have you the ring } 

Tempt. This haggard fury ! 

Mrs. L. What ! 

Dr. You are well paired, as even your Lilla's eyes, 
Which, from their sunny dove-flight in blue skies. 
Have rarely lowered, but flown right on, Man being 
Their Venus, earth the car. 
Mrs. L. One kiss at least, — 



Ii6 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Lilla. {IVakening^ Get something, mother, I am 
hungry now. 

Mrs. L. Yes, darling, I have brought the chicken 
broth. {Looks for it.) 

Lilla. If you cared much for me, you would not leave 
me. 
Sick people soon see that they are not wanted. 
People don't like you always in their houses, 
They told me to my face so. Oh ! how cold 
My feet are ! Warm a smoothing-iron, please. 

Tempt. Shall I release you, Colonel ? 

Van D. Try it. 

Col No. 

Mrs. W. Emma, my angel ! if you be now here, 
Direct me ; be not mute as in the lane. 

Tempt, Jane ! Come with me, poor child I come 
from this choke-damp 
To fresh, bright air. My arm. 

Mrs. W. No. 

Tempt, You will not f [E^^it.] 

Mrs. L. Gone .'* 

Dr. Sister, the redeemer will soon heal 

All cravings of the heart, wide, bleeding gashes. 

Mrs. L. Without one kiss ! Oh ! we shall follow him. 

Lilla. A kiss for whom, ma ? 

Mrs. L. You, my love. 

Lilla. For me } 

I am not dying. 

Mrs. L. No, indeed, dear, — have 
The broth now ? It is cold, though. 

Lilla, I am full. 

Z^r. Whether man rose from slime, or grew from ape. 
Thou didst bend over, Sire ! didst warmly breathe 
Through his pale lips the reddening breath of mind. 
Bequeathing him a hunger to behold Thee, 
An upward impulse that can loiter not, — 

Lilla. I wish this dress were finished. I doubt 
much — 



CAGLTOSTRO. 11/ 

Dr. For it barns fiercelier than dread Fire, the wildest 
Of red inhabitants of forest, prairie. — 

Lilla. If girls will follow me in this reform ; — 
Dr. With reason, memory of Thee, compares 
He all those challenging, like Liberalism, 
Science, and Christianism, '* Go thou no further; " — 
Lilla. They are so fond of being squeezed to death. — 
Dr. But minds them not; for each, though it horizon 
The earth aurorally, — ah! sensibly, 
Not rationally, — is too prone to narrow 
A jerking noose around opponents' throats, 
And narrowing is no lineament of Thine ; 
Hence, up he struggles with hunger still more mad- 
dening. 
Lilla. Would time, that crawls on caterpillar legs, 
Were golden-winged ! Oh, I am icy cold 
With thy delay, dear Keats ! Didst thou not say 
We were one creature, each a heavenly wing, 
And, separated, each a lifeless thing } 
That with stupendous marvels from all regions. 
Strange languages, prophetic visions, cures. 
We builded such a spacious nest that none, 
Glancing at it, could think of limiting 
Our range, or of prescribing that which we 
Could catch, bring earthward } 
Mi^s. S. Patience, Lilla, dear. 

Lilla. Oh ! for the day when all are poets, not 
Alone in insight, grasp, but action ! when 
We need not lasso thoughts, or tame them down 
And hold them, like a hostler, for the straddling 
Of lazy Stupor, who sees only the dust. 
Raised by them in their galloping to heaven, 
And is ere long unhorsed ! when we may leap 
From steed to steed of the upward-rushing millions, 
As lightnings leap from cloud-caved wave to wave ! 

Dr. No matter where we turn, our sight is lidded 
Down by machinery, fuming swallower 
Of stream and forest. Young men in their strength. 



Ii8 CAGLIOSTRO. 

And maidens in their beauty, by the millions, 

It crushes with its alligator teeth 

From the glad sun — his rise, warm, flowery spring, 

With gay, bright songsters, streaming from the blackness 

Of winter foraging, or natal grove, 

As the aurora in the spectral Iceland ; 

His noon, fruit-fulgent summer ; and his set, 

Prognosticative of a fairer morrow. 

The gorgeous. Protean, foliage-clouded autumn. 

What ! such a thing a development of Thine ? 

No, but the grub of my bright-winged Redeemer. 

(^Plover dashes in, hissings howling^ and in convulsions^ 

Mrs. S. Hal ! Henry ! Birdie with you, too ? How 
welcome! 
This night of all nights, when the Lord will — 

Dr. Spirits, 

Who breathe out Christian notions, are no tittle 
Better than those that frighten fools with hell. 

Mrs. S. Well, when the Lord comes, you will be con- 
vinced. 

Dr. Be patient ! Is the noblest attribute 
Of God not patience ? which is one great proof 
The Deity is not feminine, my dear. 
Just think of the ages — geological!-^ 
Before Creation got its apices 
Of Man and this Machine, — 

Mrs. L. It were much better 

For earth, if God were feminine, I think. — 

Dr. And now obstruct not with distrust, or apathy. — • 
What are you doing Smith Van Doozer ? 

Van D. ( With one knee on P lover ^ having floored him?) 

Holding 
Him during the exorcism. 

Dr. To ascertain 

How the swine felt when they received the legion ? 
Force after moral suasion, not before it. 
By willing master your tormentor. General. 
Each man has such a fiend, — this .vice, or that, — 



CAGLIOSTRO. II9 

Of which he must be master, or a carcass, 
Trampled and bloody, on its bison horn. 

Mrs. IV. Aleck! my Aleck ! 

Br. Wait a moment, madam. — 

Thou pirate, tramp, in Willard's form, depart. 

Patsy. Divil the foot. 

Dr. Be good, now ; go. Your name, 

Friend } 

Patsy. Patsy I was christened, and begarrah. 

Paid well for it, though since, like your redeemer, 
I ind in hell, — 

Dr, Ha ! 

Mrs. W. Oh ! — 

Patsy. 'Twas no great bargain. 

Mrs. IV. Come, — my poor husband ! 

Br. (To Mrs. S) Pacify her, dear. 

(To Patsy?) Where are you from } 

Patsy. {Changing brogue.) From Cork. 

Mrs. IV. {Restrained by Ralph and Mrs. 5.) Oh! 

Dr. Whence in spirit } 

Patsy. Phew ! from the bottom of the bottle — hell. 

Dr. I thought so ! In the place called, on account 
Of famine in your vocabulary, hell, 
Because of drunkardness .'* 

Patsy. Have ye the power 

Of absolution ? 

Dr. No. 

Patsy. Why thin confess } 

Dr. When you declare you are in hell, you show 
Convincingly that you have been a drunkard. 
And have not cast the horrors over your head 
Yet, as black snake his skin ; hence, when you fleer 
At my Messiah, I know I am in Bedlam — 
Or ought to be. 

Patsy. You're right. 

Mrs. IV. Am I unfit 

To nurse him ? 



120 CAGLIOSTRO 

Dr. Patience ! there will be no need 

Of nursing, ma'am. 

Mrs, W, (^PiteoiLsly) George ! 

CoL (^Sharply.) What ? 

Dr. Iconoclastic 

Spirit, that vultures, sharks, each glorious Movement, 
Depart hence, fly, or sink. 

Patsy. Faix, I likes company, 

I might as well wait for your — phat — is — it } 

Z>r. Avaunt ! Or I shall steep you to the neck 
In agony a million years. 

Lilla, O, doctor ! 

Patsy. Phew ! be so heartless, cruel t 

Dr, Instantly off! 

One, two — shall I count three } 

Patsy. Oh! at the thought 

I melt like vapor on a frosty day 
Out of his mouth. (^Plover falls,') 

Dr. (^Whispering to Lilla.) Be not alarmed, my dear, 
About the million years. We banish ignorant 
Spirits by threatening ihem.* 

Plover. (^Rising and staggering^! Gosh ! I am under 
The ice just long enough. 

Col. Doctor, the rite now. 

Mrs. W. What ! push our Emma's memory out of 
doors 
Into the trembling, wet, blue-lipping cold. 
To whine, like wind, forever round the house.-* 
Aleck, what does this mean t what does this mean \ 
These people will vacate my house this instant. 

Mrs, S. Did not your darling say, " Heal papa's brow " ? 

Ralph. Was not your first wife, General, a wild boa 
Constrictor that, in a guardless hour, wound round you ? 

Plover. You bet ! 

Ralph. Hence, with sky-splitting thunder. Nature 
Shrieks, it was never a marriage. 

* See the letter of the old man to A. J. Davis, in The Diakka and their 
Earthly Victims. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 12 1 

Mrs. W. Never! — Yet — 

Ralph. " What ! could I suffer the marshy snake to drag 

My eagle down, that lightning-clawed with battle 

A nation Heavenward"? 

Plover. How my head aches, bleeds ! 

Dr. Sore for a while is the head with horns wrenched 
off, 

But the redeemer will soon heal all sores. 
Patsy. {Appearing in bishop's robes) 

By good Saint Patrick, who evicted the shnakes — 

Oh ! what a pity 'tis that landlords were 

Not crapin', thin ! — I was here at tin sharp, 

To kill off separation, double-fanged 

Sarpent, that lies between ye, bites ye both. 

Lilla. Keats! I behold thee, lowering from pink cloud, 

In waterfalls of flight, like yellow- birds 

Upon bright, breezy mornings, when, alone, 

I wandered, like a brooklet, through the meadows, 

Becoming a freshet — Mississippi rise — 

Of ecstasy with fusing of the glaciers. 

Mountains, trees, boulders, birds, streams, towns, and 
hopes. 
Patsy. Will Alexander Willard take for wife 

Jane Guilderbury ? 

CoL {To Mrs. IV.) Humor — 

M7's. IV. Oh! 

Plover. I will. 

Patsy. Will you, Jane Guilderbury. — 
Mrs. IV. Willard! Willard! — 

Col. Blame no one but yourself for a relapse — 
Patsy. Have Alexander Willard for your husband } 
Mrs. IV. 1 will. (Matt/da enters, falling.) 

Patsy. 1 put the ring, eternity, 

Ni)t on your finger but around your lives. 

Now ye are one, and may ye be a dozen. 

Lilla. How I have thirsted, Cupid, for thy coming! 
J/;x L. Confound it, blind, old, backing ox, turn 
round, 



122 CAGLIOSTRO. 

And see where you are treading. 

(P lover y having been purposely pushed against her by Ma- 
tilda^ sneaks ojf?) 

Matilda. Where am I ? 

In Pandemonium ? Help ! 

Mrs. L. How dare you come 

Here, after striving your best to keep back Lilla? — 
You powdered, Chinese-footed, jealous thing ! 

Matilda. Help ! why was I lugged hither by a spirit ? 
My ears now feel as long as that old hares. 

Mrs. L. I would not want to hang since you were 
thirty, 
My skin might been a drum-head for Bull-Run. 

Matilda. Where — where am 1 1 

Dr. At Sister Willard's. 

Matilda. Sister ! — 

Pshaw ! she that slammed the door right through my 

bones, 
As though I were a dog that had just drawn 
Her blood, or roast beef from the table, oven ? — 

Ralph. {To Matilda.') The meteorite must not fall 
into a marsh. — 

Matilda. That, missing her husband's heart, called me 
the thief? 
Was it in pocket, or with rouge in the drawer } 
A sensible woman would have had it bosomed 
Out of the reach of thieves. — What stupid thing 
Is floundering there ? like lobster in a pot. 

Col. Free, free me ! Why the devil don't you wrench 
Her neck off? 

Mrs. IV. Oh! 

Matilda. (To Mrs. W.) Come to the Nugget House, 
Where father and Fouracres are now crackling 
Their glasses with delight at their escape. — 

Plover {Grasping Matilda.) You promised to keep 
quiet — 

Matilda. {Eluding him.) If you called 

Me just before the marriage. 

Plover, Cracked. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 123 

Matilda, I will 

Be more so. 

Plover. (^Seizing her,) Will you ? 

Matilda. Oh! Oh! 

Col. {Muttering) Smother her. 

Matilda. Off! how dare you be so familiar .? 

Mrs. W. God I 

Matilda. (^Released.) I spurned you from the first, you 
hateful spider! 
That winds around poor, insect-hearted women 
So silkenly. {Flaunts her dress — the purple) 

Mrs. IV. What ! Aleck, do you put 
This creature of the street on the scales with me ? 
Lord! 

Ralph. {Pushing Matilda) Women, when adepts at 
vitrol throwing, — 

Matilda, Could I have held Fouracres to be mur- 
dered ? — 

Ralph. Lose right of sanctuary in their sex, — 

Matilda. When Willard, thirsty, followed out the win- 
dow — 
Got too stuck up to notice an old neighbor. — 

Ralph. Are dragged out, made to swallow what they 
throw. 

Mrs. IV. His father comes. O God ! how can I hide 
All ? Must I share my grief, like wedding-cake. 
With friends .? 'Tis not. Would that it were ! Dear 

Emma ! 
If here now, speak, direct. A saturnalia 
Lideed, — Oh, everywhere ! if agonies 
Awaken faculties for Heaven in us, 
Pinions that have not spreading room on earth, 
God ! let me fly, let Emma guide from this 
Thick fog. — My darling, did you say, " Bear up " ? 
I will. [Exit.] 

Plover. Say, Colonel ! Colonel ! 

Lilla. (^Rising toward Cag?) Sweetest poet, 

Ever thine, wholly ! Like the thrilling throat 



124 CAGLIOSTRO, 

Of a canary, throb my heart and brain 

With melody of love for thee, thee only, — 

Love, myriad-noted as the rain of May 

On meads, which echo it with odorous flowers, — 

As they have throbbed with joy since first I read, — 

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; " — 

Plover. He drained this vial, — leaves me in a hell of 
a fix. 
Raymond, a lift. He could not brass it out. — 
{They cmny the Col. out^ 
Lilla. " Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into noth " — {Clasps him?) Oh, the blue, welkin- 
ward 
Abandon of love, true love, who lets the world 
Drop from her raptured fingers ! 

Gag. {Ascending with Lilla in his embrace?) 

Heavenward I Heavenward ! 
Aye, like the odorous soul of Flora, when. 
Dazzled out of her sleep by the rain, which Earth 
Is ever fountaining, like a million whales. 
She, tossing her green arms from her all-hued eyes, 
Runs up the mountain, leaps the rock, climbs tree, 
In passionate pursuit of the lark, her playmate 
Amid the dews and grasses. 

Lilla. Thou, my lark ! 

Ca^. Back with the fire we come, with Suns re- 
splendent 
From beak, — Suns for the heart and mind now moping. 
All cold, — as from the beak of bold Columbus, 
Scarlet-wing'd, diving bird, this continent 
Of golden mountains, meteoric streams. 
And nights of forests, northern-lighted with birds. 
{At their touch the machine goes off, emitting showers of 
varied brilliancy. There is great ringing of bells, 
music, and thunderous noises ; but all cease sudden.- 
ly, and Cagliostro, letting Lilla drop^ disappears.) 
Mrs. jS. Lord ! 



CAGLIOSTRO. 125 

Patsy, Ha! ha! 

Dr. When will mockers cease tormenting 

Mankind ? 

Patsy. They are the shadows of the long-nosed 

And hump-back world upon the spirit-wall. 
( Van D. rushes to Lilian and carries her to the window^ 
whose curtains flying up, and shutters out, let in 
the blaze of the forest.) 

Patsy. Phew ! my eyes, gouty with high living, ache, 
Like jumping teeth, when touched by light. 

(^Smashes the redeemer and disappears^ 

Mrs. L. Is that 

My Lilla .? 

Matilda. You have murdered her by letting 

Them bring her here. 

Mrs. L. Lilla, my love ! O Lilla ! 

Dead } dead } my Lilla t 

Dr. God ! must Reason, noble, 

Old Saturn, still have " realmless eyes," starve on } 
Still suck the blood of his pale arm for nectar 1 

Mrs. L. (^Stooping over.') Lilla, speak, speak ! — your 
mother, — speak ! 

Vait D. (^Having closed Lilla s mouth and eyes, and 
having kissed her.) Too late ! 

The gate is closed forever. 

Mi's. L. (^Falling on Lillay and sobbing violently?) 

God ! Oh ! Oh ! 

Van D. Creation is unpillared, it is falling 
Before my eyes as miserable, Lilla, 
Now that your smile forever is departed. 
Could I be sure your spirit, not a mocking 
Diakka, would respond, bright were my future, 
But no such blessed certitude for me.* 
I will embalm you, mummy you, — though wherefore } 
That, in a thousand years hence, as rich Greeks, 

* Professor Wallace says that Spiritualists know well that absolute de- 
pendence is to be placed on no individual communication. If on no in- 
dividual comijiunication, can the logical mind depend on any ? 



126 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Brothers of Alcibiades, by us 

Are, you may be imported for manure 

By the New Zealander ? 

Mrs. S. No, dearest Lord, 

We need not droop our heads, give way to tears. 
Thou, Wisest! wert no fool to promise what 
Thou never couldst perform. What! Purity's self 
A heinous, villanous impostor } Could 
The Sun shine black } congeal the earth .? — The Sun 
That, like an urchin, with long, golden curls. 
Bending above the lake with crumbling cake. 
Attracts shoal after shoal of verdure, fruit, 
And flowers, white, purple, crimson, to the surface ? 
No. As this evening Thou didst reaffirm, 
Thou wilt come, nor be as a passing breeze, 
Which lets our feverish heads blaze up again. 
I beg Thee, only say that Lilla liveth. 

Dr. Fool ! fool ! to have believed the rainbow would 
Be rounded on earth, — be more the bow of God, 
Springing out after arrowing the Deluge, 
Now, than when Noah's black ark was fastened among 
The arctic ice-bergs of the ghastly dead ! 

Ralph, (^Entering.) A comet may strike earth, ethere- 
alize it 
Without, as with an angry whale's tail, tossing 
It sky-high, like a yawl, or life-boat. 

Mrs. L. This 

The trailing silks of glory } 

Ralph. It may pass 

Through earth, nor less effectual, unperceived. 

Dr. I am no Millerite to swallow that. 
No higher can man, with hunger still more maddening, 
Progress. Is it his destiny to craze .-* 

Mrs. L. My darling ! this the opening of my eyes ? 

Ralph. ( Whispering^) Tillie, my love, come. 

Matilda. I mistrust the dog 

That, after snapping, licks my face, — there is 
Saliva in him, 



CAGLIOSTRO. 127 

Ralph, To the devil with you, 

Then. If the Colonel should revive, beware. 
( Whispering,^ Thief ! 

Matilda. I have worn it, I arn satisfied, 
Shall throw it to her and un-throat all, all ! 
Fetch Sarah Plover here this very night. — 

(^Goes to Mrs. Z.) 
Dear Sister Lamb, if I can be of service 
To you in any way, do mention it. 

Mrs. L. Lilla, my darling ! Am I never more 
To see your face, so beautiful that even 
Old, envious Sarah Plover called you lovely ? 
Oh ! Never more to comb your golden hair 
Down to your graceful swan-neck of a waist, 
The envy of all mothers and their girls. (^Sobs,) 

Van D. ( With hand on Mrs. Ls shoulder.) 
Try to restrain. 

Mrs, L. Oh ! you have lost no daughter. 

Van D. Dear Sister Lamb, keen is your anguish, but 
No, no, not more than mine. Her dreamy, large, 
Blue eyes, by her tiny left hand shaded from 
The Sun-light, springing suddenly, as squirrel, 
Upon her from the trees, surprising her 
So that she staggers and upsets her bloomer 
Of choicest flowers, — Oh ! such a sight no more ; 
It lifted creation from the eely mud 
Of rueful musing ; but no more ! no more I 

Dr. Father Almighty I is it dark despair, 
The vortical shadow of the earth gyrating, 
Like a tornado, up to Thee, wherein 
Pie now must plunge .-* There, plunging head-long down, 
I hear him bellow, — " Oh ! I was Thy dog. 
To whom Thou flungest what was sweetest, grandest, 
Earth, sun, sea, seasons, music, law, and beauty, 
That in the end Thou, like a cruel wretch," — 

Mrs S. Oh ! Oh ! because God does not fall, surren- 
der 
To your vagary unconditionally. — 



128 CAGLIOSTRO. 

Dr. '' Mayst pour down into my swift-swallowing throat 
An iron, glowing white and soft as milk, 
The hope of 'meeting Thee yet, face to face." — 

Van D. We must not be splashed backward, Squig- 
ginson. 
But manfully overswim the deluge, pouring 
On us from all horizons, though we land 
Just nowhere, nowhere. To phenomenal 
Nature, some, with the poet, rush from grief, 
And others, with the mystic, seek the Soul. 
I have sought both ; in each have found a wolf 
With eyes and teeth set glistening, under which 
I could not think to lay me down to rest. 
Oh ! we know nothing but excruciation ! 
Which Jesus, recognizing, glorified 
As the grape-arbored way to a Heavenly Mansion. 
Action, dear brother, action ! Let us blind 
Ourselves with action, and with action deaden 
The malady of thought, fast-fueling Hell 
Of sensibility. Wherein does genius 
Itself, Sir, differentiate from madness 1 * 
Expect no Calsium Light behind the world, 
The grand procession wherein whooping tribes. 
Sky-rocketing nations, hold before their heads 
Their theories, creeds, dark, blinding torch-lights ! Action! 
Action for Man — the first we meet — not that 
Vas^ue god, Humanity, — huge Brocken Shadow, 
Before whom thousands bow most noble heads, 
Swing richest incense, — not one jot superior 
To snow-gods, all tattoed with dirt and stone, 
Which brawny tribes rolled up their native hills 
In Time's dark morning. 

Mrs. L. This for offering you — 

Oh, as a fatherless child ! — with these mad arms 
To spirits on the night 1 meant to hang 
Myself.? iSobs.-) 

* A few years ago a French physician, of some repute as a medical 
writer, wrote a treatise to show that genius was a form of dementia. 



CAGLIOSTRO. 129 

Mrs. S. (JLifting Lillas head.') 

Command her to arise, and, Lord! 
Do straighten the sight of those who turn their eyes 
Into their sockets to their will from Thine. 

Dj\ God ! laugh Thy fill now at my rolling, plunging, 
And pawdisboweling. 

Mrs. L. (^Rushing at Dr.) Give me back my darling, — 
You told me what she said was true ! was true ! — 
Must have her ! Give me back my Lilla, ever 
My warm heart — at my side — a heart that never 
Could fail me ! Give me back my darling child ! 

Dr. {Eluding her.) 
Let out annihilation from Thy heart, 
Thy all eternity-harbored " ha I ha ! ha ! " 

Mrs. S. Lord God ! dost Thou in this dark hour for- 
sake me? 
Pity us all. — Do I ask Thee to pity ? 
All human pity for our kind that ever 
Could be, were but a dew-drop on a daisy, 
Compared with Thine, which is an endless rain, 
A deluge, though unseen by us, poor fools, 
Who fancy that our hearts are larger than Thine, 
And with this fancy so afflict our souls. 

(^Cagliostro reappears amid clouds?) 
Welcome, O dearest Lord ! Oh ! welcome, welcome ! 
Once that this Babel lay demolished, as 
All such must lie, I was as sure of seeing 
Thee, as if I had just approached the Mount 
Where thousands, quiet as a snowy morn, 
Stood, and from clay changed into violets, 
Lillies, and roses, an oasis sweet 
To angels deserting since Eden sank. 
Beneath Thy zephyr voice. O Thou, who breathest 
On wintry earth, and it is Spring ! I beg Thee, 
Behold poor Lilla. With Thy garment's hem 
Only just touch her! touch my husband, too, — 
Oh ! all the world, which is to be the more 
Pitied because, like owls, it hoots at light, 



I30 CAGLIOSTRO. 

At those who mean well, — even those far astray — 
Oh ! even, Lord, those who, having lost Thy trail, 
Follow the moon, their promptings, round and round 
The prairies, and lie hopeless down, thirst, craze, 
Deny that there is water, or an East. 

Mrs. L. Lilla, my darling ! — give me back my Lilla \ 
With heart as large as her golden hair was long. — 
Oh ! must that hair, you had no patience to rack, 
And were so proud of, grow now in the grave 
Neglected ? like the yellow weeds, — " on which 
The black-winged shiner feeds, but does not sing, 
For he soars chirping to the cedar-peak, 
As may my spirit from weedy earth to God." — 
Amen ! amen I my darling child, amen ! 
• Mrs. W. QRtm7iing in and falling, followed by the 
Judge zvith a glittering bayonet) God ! {Cag.^ 
disappearing slowly y fixes his gaze on the Judge?) 

Judge. His will — 

Mrs, W. George ! George ! 

Judge. {Feeling for her hearty And not mine, dear 
child. 
One second, dear. 

Matilda. {Springing in between Mrs. W. and the 
Judge) God ! save her ! — Oh ! 

(^Matilda is pierced through the breast , and the Judge is 
disarmed and restrained by Van D.) 

Judge. Earth, tossed 

By stormy-headed winter in the air, 
Is falling down on the bison's horn, to be 
All gored, nay, trampled on, hurled upward again. 

Matilda. {Staggering?) Maybe she will believe me 
now, her sister. {Drops) 

Judge. Jane, fly ! thou art the angel to catch the world, 
Hug it to breast, as were it Emma found, 
And stand on the beast till it, exhausted, drops. 
To hold thee would make me a damned 2?Ci^\XQXy 
Jane. I am no abettor ! {To Van D.) Off thou fury 
Of hell ! ferocious imprecation from 



CAGLIOSTRO, 13 1 

My own child's mouth, off! off! Infernal harpy ! 
Thou shalt not stench my daily bread ; shalt not 
Claw off my hope of Heaven when I am dying. 
Dr. With strength developec,.! will conquer all. 
Judge. Oh ! horrible beyond all utterance — horri- 
ble I— 
Dr. Woe to the circling hawk that dares approach, 
Or moon-struck woman, — woman with heart-pearled 
eyes. — \Exit^ 

Judge Must that Last Supper be where Christ is not. 
But He will be at mine, since I am not 
A damned abettor ; for I set her free 
To snatch our Land up from the mutilation 
Of savages, and blazing of forest, prairie, 
Village, and city, universal ruin. 
That would have followed glorious Willard's downfall. 

Mi's. S. Like furious billows, horrors splash upon me, 
O Lord ! but I walk over them to Thee, 
With firmer step than up a hill of granite 
" To the Sun-mitred East, before whom Ocean 
Marches sublimely with his acolytes 
Of waves, each genuflecting reverently 
To earth, peak-lighted altar, choired by birds, 
Incensed by swinging forests, and Thy Foot-stool, 
God ! Good ! Eternal Beauty " ! — In Thy name 
(Trembling^, I say, — Matilda! be thou healed; walk 

forth ; 
And Lilla I rise. I say. Arise ! Walk Forth I 

(^She lifts Li lids hand. After a pause Mrs. L, 
breaks out afresh. Van D. struggles with the 
Judge, and gorgeous are the clouds after Caglios- 
trds set.) 



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